A Look Back
by TheCompositionNotebook
Summary: After Harry's trial is over, Sirius, Remus, and a few others find out just how much trouble he's gotten himself into.
1. The Beginning

**Hello! Here's a little story idea I've had for nearly a year now... I'm finally getting it written! Hope you guys like it!**

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Harry walked quickly down the hall of Grimmauld Place, slipping into the room he and Ron shared. He snapped the door closed behind him before going over to sit on the closest bed, the one he slept in.

So. The trial was finally over. He got off. Though, if Fudge had gotten his way, he'd be having his wand snapped in half right now. He reached into his pocket and pulled his wand out, running his fingers along the smooth wood.

His wand. His trusty wand. Which, he had to admit, had most likely saved his life back in June… If there hadn't been that connection between the two wands…

Harry's scar gave a sudden twinge, and he quickly set his wand down on the bed next to him. He pressed both of his hands against his forehead as he gritted his teeth. Behind his closed eyes, he saw a very blurry scene, and a sudden flash of bright green light, accompanied by a peal of cruel, high, cold laughter and a dull knocking noise.

He opened his eyes back up a few seconds later, the bedroom slowly coming back into focus. He groaned and flopped backwards, still rubbing his scar, which was now prickling as usual. He sat there for a few moments, before a sudden voice behind him spoke up.

"How often does your scar hurt like that?"

Harry shot up and twisted around to face the doorway, scrambling to grab his wand from in the folds of the blanket spread out on the bed. He calmed down considerably when he saw that it was Sirius standing there.

"Merlin, Sirius. You nearly gave me a heart attack. I didn't hear you come in," Harry said.

"No, I don't suppose you did," Sirius responded quietly. "You looked a bit preoccupied."

Harry shrugged slightly as Sirius stepped into the room, coming and sitting down next to him. "So, how often does that happen?" he persisted.

"Er… Every now and then," Harry said evasively, smoothing out his hair and not quite meeting his godfather's eyes. "Not too often, really."

"You know Harry… After spending ten years with James, both of us getting into trouble and then somehow weaseling out of it again every other day, you notice a few things. For example, whenever James lied about anything, he used to mess with his hair," Sirius said thoughtfully.

Harry immediately withdrew his hand from his hair and crossed his arms. Sirius smiled slightly, despite the situation.

"How about telling me the truth?" Sirius asked then. Harry looked up at him for a few seconds, and he could tell that his godfather meant business.

"Well, it hasn't stopped prickling since June. I guess there's no chance I could stop there, is there?" Sirius shook his head, and Harry sighed. "I'm fine, really. It's no horrible problem. It just hurts a lot worse every now and then. Whenever Voldemort throws a fit. Every few days, every few hours, it depends on his mood."

Sirius chuckled slightly. "Only you, Prongslet, could make Voldemort's temper sound like that of a teenage girl."

"Well, he might as well be one. He has the most horrible mood swings," Harry said glumly, making Sirius chuckle again.

"You truly are your father's son, Harry. He'd be cracking jokes at a time like this as well," Sirius said. After a few seconds, he added, "Listen. I'm sorry you have to deal with all that. While I certainly do think you have the right to know anything you want to regarding Voldemort, and you are nearly an adult… Molly is right in some aspects. Namely, you're too young to have to have all of this on your head."

"It's alright, Sirius. Really. I can handle it," Harry said quickly.

"I have no doubt in my mind that you can. You inherited that from both of your parents. Strong and stubborn," he said, the corners of his mouth twitching upwards. Harry smiled a bit at that, before Sirius said, "My point is, you're fifteen. You shouldn't have to worry about these things. You should be worrying about your O.W.L.S., not about being killed."

It was Harry who chuckled this time, before he said, "Sirius, it's fine. I'd rather it be me than someone else."

"And there is that part of your mother you have in you. Always incredibly kind." He shook his head slightly. "Anyways, come on. Let's get down to the drawing room. Everyone is down there. They probably want to celebrate some more."

"Alright. I'll be down in a minute," Harry said, and his godfather gave him a quick smile before he slipped back out into the hall, shutting the door quietly behind him.

Harry stared after him for a few seconds, just thinking.

~A Look Back~

Down in the drawing room, the others were all gathered and sitting with bowls of ice cream that Mrs. Weasley had provided them. They were all chatting amiably over their dessert, the mood much lighter than it had been for the past days. The fact that Harry's trial was over meant that everyone was relieved, worrying off of their minds. They all knew he couldn't be convicted. There was no way.

Yet, they did know that the Ministry was very likely infiltrated.

The door opened and Sirius walked in by himself. They all looked around at each other before Hermione spoke up. "Where's Harry, Sirius? I thought you were going to bring him down with you."

"He said he'd be down in just a minute," Sirius stated as he sat down. A few of the people seated in the room looked around with slightly worried expressions, which Sirius was quick to pick up on.

"It's alright," he said slowly. "I think he just needs a bit of time to himself. He hasn't been alone too much since he's gotten here. He probably needed quiet. To think."

"Did… did you ask him about his scar hurting, like I said?" Hermione asked softly, looking worried.

"Well, I didn't have to ask," said Sirius. "I didn't get an answer when I knocked, so I opened the door a crack to make sure everything was okay. It looked like he was in considerable pain."

"I knew it!" Hermione exclaimed, slamming her book down on the table next to her. Ron, who was seated next to her, jumped as it made a loud bang. "He's been acting like it has all week!"

"He has?" Ron asked, looking over at her.

"Honestly, Ronald. You are the most oblivious person I have ever met," she said, turning her eyes on him. Both of the twins snorted, and Ron sent a glare over at them.

"Anyway," Hermione said, drawing the attention back to her and the situation at hand, "I asked him about it, but he's too noble to admit it!"

"He told me just now that he would rather it be him that anyone else," Sirius admitted, shaking his head.

Everyone around the room registered what he'd said, before Ron said, "That bloody noble git. He's too noble for his own good." He grinned as he shook his head.

All of the other students in the room nodded, or agreed softly.

"Honestly. With all of the stuff he's gotten into over the years..." George said.

"I reckon he's almost caused more trouble than we have," Fred said, grinning.

"Is that really possible?" Remus asked, the corners of his mouth turning upwards. Both Mr. and Mrs. Weasley were looking very skeptical.

"Oh, yeah," Ron said, shaking his head. "I swear, he is the most danger prone person to walk this earth. Or at least the unluckiest."

"Really. The amount of times he's nearly died alone…" Ginny said. "And I don't even know much about his first year, either."

Mrs. Weasley was starting to look very worried.

"When you look at it, he's nearly died, been severely injured, and has pulled a bloody noble move that's put him in even more danger every year," Ron said. The students nodded again, while the adults were looking flabbergasted.

"Even his first year?" Sirius asked, raising his eyebrows.

"Especially first year!" Ron responded.

Sirius looked for a few seconds like he didn't believe them. "Really? Even at eleven years old he pulled a noble move that severely injured him and nearly got him killed?"

One look at Ron and Hermione's faces told him everything he needed to know.

"Yes. He did," Hermione said softly. "Ron and I were there for most of it. In fact, we've nearly always been there for at least a part of it."

"I reckon we're the only two besides Dumbledore who knows everything about what he's been through," Ron said, shaking his head again. "Though he usually always ends up by himself somehow. And that's where he gets himself in the most trouble."

Another look about the room showed a few people looking agreeable, and others looking inquisitive and worried, Sirius among the latter.

Hermione sniffed a little bit and said, "He's faced Voldemort three times in the last four years, and he's been alone every single time."

"So he's faced Voldemort four times now?" Sirius asked wildly, looking alarmed.

"Didn't Dumbledore tell you anything about Harry's life from before you got out of Azkaban?" Hermione asked.

"Not too much, really. Just that he had a very troublesome first few years and a certain knack for sticky situations," Sirius said, looking back and forth between Ron and Hermione.

Harry chose that moment to enter the room, and every eye turned on him as he stepped in. There was a long silence as he looked around awkwardly.

"What are you all…" he began, before Sirius stood up and walked over to him, wrapping him in another hug. "Sirius, what…?"

"Harry. You need to tell me everything you've done at school that I don't know about. Starting with your first two years."

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	2. The Letter

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"What do you mean?" Harry asked confusedly.

"Your friends have told me some interesting things…" Sirius said slowly. Harry shot a look over to Ron and Hermione.

"All I said was that you're a bloody noble git who's nearly been killed every year!" Ron said, raising his hands up innocently.

Harry's eyes moved over to Hermione. "I just said that you've met Voldemort three times in the last four years," she said, avoiding his eye.

"And I would very much like to know under what circumstances those things happened," Sirius said expectantly.

Harry rolled his eyes. "Sirius, we just talked about this. Voldemort is a mentally insane murderer who is out to get me. Those are the circumstances," he said, going and sitting down next to Ron.

"That's not what I mean, Harry, and you know it. I want to hear about your life before I met you. And other things that may have happened since then that I haven't heard about as well."

"Oh, but Sirius-"

"No buts, Prongslet! You're going to tell us, and that's final! I mean, what's the problem in divulging information about something that's already happened?" Sirius asked, looking stern.

Harry looked around as Sirius maintained the stern look and sat down, avoiding the gaze.

"I'm sure Ron and Hermione could mostly help us piece it together, with or without you," Sirius said warningly.

Harry leaned back as his eyes flicked to his friends again. Hermione picked up her book and started flicking through the pages, and Ron started examining the tapestry, whistling innocently. Both were very obviously avoiding his gaze. He heard the Twins snort again. Harry could tell that both were slightly ashamed that they'd revealed so much already, but he knew they only did because they cared. Or whatever. He sighed.

"Alright, fine. I'll tell you what you want to know. With a few restrictions, mind you," Harry said.

"Alright," Sirius agreed, nodding. "What are your restrictions?"

"Well, first of all, no yelling or scolding for what's already done. And I can't be punished in any way for anything either!" Harry said firmly.

Sirius raised an eyebrow. "Should I have reason to?"

There was a brief pause, before Harry said, "No comment. But that goes to anyone in this room." His eyes drifted over to Remus and Mrs. Weasley.

"Alright, alright," Sirius relented. "No scolding or punishments. Anything else?"

"No getting upset," Harry stated flatly. "This stuff already happened. It's done. Over. I'm fine."

"Alright. We'll try. Right everyone?" Sirius asked, looking around at the others. Remus nodded, though Mrs. Weasley looked a bit skeptical. After a little convincing, she agreed, and Harry seemed satisfied.

"Harry?" Remus asked, gaining the teens attention. "One restriction of my own. Please make sure you don't skip over any details. Even if you're less than fond of them."

"Ah, good point, Moony!" Sirius exclaimed. "We won't be leaving anything out, will we Harry?"

Harry shrugged, saying, "Of course not." Though, he had been thinking of leaving a couple more worrying details out to appease his godfather.

After a few brief seconds of silence, Harry realized everyone was looking at him expectantly, and he started a little. "Okay… So, where do I start?"

"Why not with your first visit to King's Cross?" Sirius suggested. "Your first train ride to Hogwarts?"

Harry smiled slightly, glad that his godfather hadn't asked about anything before Hogwarts. He didn't really fancy sitting and telling them all about the Dursleys.

"Or what about when you got your Hogwarts letter?" Hermione asked. Harry turned back to her again, eyes wide.

"Oh, that's good! Start there, then!" Sirius said happily.

Harry sent a glare at Hermione, who was still avoiding his eye. She knew about his life with the Dursleys, he knew that. He sighed yet again, having a feeling he'd be doing that quite a bit. He knew she meant well, but he didn't want Sirius to become a real murderer.

"Where were you when you got it?" Sirius asked. "I'll always remember mine. Just sitting down to lunch, we were, when the owl flew in. Dropped it right on my lap. It was one of the best moments of my life. The moment I realized I didn't have to sit with my mentally challenged Death Eater, pure blood supremacist family anymore."

"Mine was sort of like that. Well, the one I actually received. Not the very first one. Or the couple of ones after that," Harry said, picking at the hem of his shirt.

"What do you mean by the very first one?" Mr. Weasley asked, knitting his eyebrows.

Sirius was looking at Harry very oddly. Harry spared a quick glance over at him before he cleared his throat. "Well, this was four years ago, but if I remember right… It was one of the rare days that I wasn't cooking the eggs and bacon for breakfast. I think… Aunt Petunia was dying some of Dudley's old clothes for my new school uniform, because that's what they wore at Stonewall High."

"But… Who cares what they wear at Stonewall High?" Ginny asked. "You're going to Hogwarts! You get your uniform at Madam Malkins!"

"Well, I always wore my cousins' old things. I never got my own, I always got his leftovers. And they weren't about to go buy me a special outfit just because I was going to a new school and needed one," Harry explained, conveniently skipping over the Hogwarts question and hoping someone would be more interested in what he'd just said. And sure enough…

"Harry, your cousin is five times bigger than you!" Fred exclaimed.

"You were so small back then, how could you fit into his things?" George asked.

"Well, I had to roll up the sleeves and pant legs five or six times. Belts were absolutely necessary. I remember thinking that I'd look like I was wearing bits of elephant skin on my first day in that dyed uniform," Harry said thoughtfully.

There was a long silence, in which Harry realized that everyone was looking upset with what he'd said.

"Anyways," he said, hurrying along with his story, eager to get it over with, "I sat down at the table, and after a few moments my uncle told me to go get him the mail. And… there it was. The letter.

"I had no clue what it was, I mean, I never got anything in the mail! So I gave my uncle back the other stuff and went to open it, but my cousin realized I had it and told my uncle, who promptly took it from me."

"He took your letter from you?" Sirius asked angrily.

"Sirius, let me finish. And no getting upset, remember," Harry said warningly. Sirius grumpily sat back in his chair, falling silent. "So, my uncle took it. Though not without whining from my cousin about how he wanted to read it too."

"Your cousin doesn't need to see it! It's yours!" Ginny said angrily.

"Yeah, well, my cousin is a greedy git," Harry said dismissively.

"And he was a bully, wasn't he?" Ron asked.

"Your cousin beat you up?" Mrs. Weasley asked worriedly. Harry rolled his eyes.

"Well, when he could catch me. I could very easily outrun him," Harry said quickly. "Anyway, when he realized what it was, he showed my aunt, and they both freaked out. My uncle threw both me and Dudley from the room, and they had a furious conversation which I overheard."

"Overheard? Or eavesdropped?" Remus asked suspiciously, raising an eyebrow.

"Well, maybe eavesdropped a little," Harry said, shrugging. "The conversation basically ended with 'We'll just ignore the letter, I'm not having one in the house, we swore when we took him in we'd stomp this nonsense out of him!'"

Everyone in the room looked shocked, and furious as well. Harry just sat back, expecting an outburst from a few people. He wasn't disappointed.

"Excuse me?" Sirius growled.

"They said what?" Remus asked similarly.

Harry sighed. "I will say it again, let me finish," he said, looking around at the occupants of the room, especially the two Marauders.

"But Harry, they seriously tried to-" Sirius began, before Harry cut him off.

"Sirius!" he said warningly. Sirius fell into another grudging silence. "Thank you. Anyways, he burned that letter."

Several people shifted and made noises of anger. Harry rolled his eyes. "Though, on the plus side, I got to have a real bedroom after that. No more cupboard under the stairs for me!" He said all of that really quickly in the hopes that nobody would really catch what he'd said. "And then the next day-"

"Harry, hold on a minute!" Sirius exclaimed furiously. "Cupboard under the stairs?"

"Sirius, please. I know you're going to be upset about this, but would you at least let me finish this particular story before you say anything?" Harry asked pleadingly. He got nothing but silence for an answer, so he kept on speaking. "The next day, there was another letter, but that one was taken as well. By this point I was very curious, so I decided to get up early and meet the postman on the corner to make sure I got it. But, on my way to sneak out, I ended up stepping on my uncles' face."

The Twins, this time accompanied by Ron, all snorted. Harry chuckled as well. "He thought I'd try to do exactly what I did, so he slept in a sleeping bag in front of the door. Where the three letters that came that day eventually landed right in his lap and he tore them all into pieces. My uncle then boarded up the mail slot."

"What in Merlin's name would he do that for?" both of the Twins said simultaneously.

"I don't know. But then, the next day, twelve letters came, shoved under the door. I think one actually ended up in the downstairs bathroom. My uncle promptly burned all twelve and then boarded up the door."

"Your uncle is a nutcase," Ron said. Harry laughed and nodded his head.

"Believe me, I know. Because then, the next day when the milk man came, he handed my aunt two dozen eggs through the living room window. And hidden inside each egg was a letter."

"Inside the egg?" Hermione asked. "How was there a letter inside the eggs?"

"Once again, I have no idea," Harry said, shaking his head. "But Aunt Petunia shredded them up. And then the next day, somewhere around fifty letters came pelting down the chimney. My uncle had a panic attack, packed us all up in the car, and we left Privet Drive.

"We ended up at some hotel for the night, and the next morning at breakfast, the Manager came over and said that they got about a hundred letters at the front desk. My uncle took care of them, and we were on the road again. He drove us around all day, in the city, in the country, all over the place. But eventually, we made it to a final destination of a shack in the middle of the ocean."

"There is something wrong with your uncle," Ron muttered. Most everyone nodded in agreement, looking completely shocked.

"But then, on my birthday the next day, Hagrid showed up. He terrified the Dursleys out of their wits, bent a shotgun into a knot, gave me my very first birthday cake, told me I was a wizard, explained about the wizarding world and Hogwarts, told me how my parents really died and about Voldemort, and gave Dudley a pigs' tail," Harry said, smiling as he talked. It was one of his fondest memories.

Nearly everyone sniggered as Harry said 'pigs' tail', though the Twins started laughing so hard they were soon crying with mirth. "Did Hagrid ever get rid of it?" Fred managed to ask between gasps.

"No, he didn't, actually. My aunt and uncle eventually had to take him to a muggle hospital to get it removed," Harry said, shaking his head.

"How did they explain that?" Hermione asked, looking concerned.

"Their cover story was that it was a wart that had gone out of control," Harry said, sniggering again. The Twins positively howled with laughter.

Though there was one person who didn't react to the last little conversation. Sirius was staring at Harry still, looking very worried. "Alright Sirius, I'm done now. You can speak your mind. But remember, this is over and done with now, so it doesn't matter."

"Harry," Sirius said, sounding slightly pained. "Of course it matters. You had to wear your cousins' old clothes, he beat you up, you cooked them meals, they kept the truth of the most important event in your life from you, and they made you sleep in a cupboard under the stairs?"

"Well, it wasn't really as bad as you make it out to be," Harry said quietly.

"But they were cruel to you, Harry! No child deserves to have any of that!" Sirius said angrily, standing up.

"Sirius, please, sit back down. I'm alright. It's fine, I survived. No, I didn't have the happiest years living with the Dursleys but it wasn't anything horrible that I couldn't handle," Harry said.

"I know you pride yourself on your ability to handle tough situations, but you didn't deserve that," Sirius said solemnly. "You deserved to know the truth about your parents' deaths! The fact that they lied to you is absolutely horrible. They disgraced you and your parents doing that."

Sirius was pacing back and forth now, his hand twitching next to the pocket where his wand was concealed.

"Sirius, please. Calm down. Believe me, Hagrid already took care of yelling at them. He had them terrified out of their wits. I remember my uncle whispering something like 'mimblewimble' he got so scared."

"Good. They deserve that," Sirius said angrily. "And they tried to squash the magic out of you. They tried to stop you from being a wizard. How dare they do that to my godson."

Everyone was watching Sirius pace around, all looking slightly alarmed at the anger that was emanating from him.

"No one is debating that what they did was awful, Padfoot," Remus said slowly, getting up and going over to where Sirius was standing.. "But I suggest you calm down. We are all upset by what the Dursleys' did to Harry (Harry rolled his eyes), but if you want to hear any more of what he's got to say, you need to settle down."

Sirius looked up at Remus for a moment, almost in thought, then switched his gaze over to his godson. He looked over at Harry for a few seconds, as though to assure himself that he was sitting in his home, a wizard and all knowledgeable about his parents. Then he slowly walked back to his seat.

"Continue, please, Harry," he said gruffly.

"Alright, well…. I guess I could talk about my first trip to Diagon Alley with Hagrid."

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	3. Diagon Alley

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**Here's chapter three, hope you like it as much as the first two!**

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"Oh. That's right; you wouldn't have ever gone before, would you?" Mr. Weasley said. "As opposed to say, Ron, who's been going there all his life."

"Yeah. I had an… interesting first experience," Harry said reminiscently. "Hagrid and I left the hut on the rock the next morning, riding in the boat that the Dursleys' and I had come over in the night before."

"Why did you take that boat?" Hermione asked curiously.

"Why wouldn't we? How else were we going to get back if we didn't take the boat?" Harry said, slightly confused.

"Well, wouldn't Hagrid have brought a boat to get to the hut on the rock in the first place?"

"No. He didn't. He…. I think he said he flew, actually," Harry said, thoughtfully.

"Flew?" The Twins both asked disbelievingly.

"How in Merlin's name would Hagrid fly?" Ron asked.

"I don't know," Harry said, shrugging. "I got distracted and never asked. Hagrid rapped the boat with his pink umbrella and it started speeding along on its own."

"Ah, Hagrids' trusty pink umbrella," Ron said, shaking his head. Harry chuckled.

"Got to love that umbrella," Harry said. "Anyway, I remember that Hagrid was reading the Daily Prophet, and I had a lot of questions to ask him, but I didn't want to disturb him."

"Always so polite," Mrs. Weasley said proudly, making her children groan slightly.

"He did tell me about the Ministry and Cornelius Fudge, though," Harry said, glowering.

"Idiot," Sirius snarled quietly. Most of the room nodded in agreement.

"And he told me about what our first stop in Diagon Alley was going to be. Gringotts, the wizarding bank. Run by goblins. You'd be mad to try and rob it because of spells and enchantments. And possibly even a dragon guarding the high security vaults. 'Crikey, I'd like a dragon' he told me…" Harry said, looking over and Ron and Hermione, both of whom shook their heads. Ron mumbled something that Harry couldn't make out, though he figured he got the gist of it. He laughed before continuing.

"So, we ended up taking a train into London-" Harry started.

"And you went on the muggle underground? Like we did today?" Mr. Weasley asked excitedly.

"Yes, on the muggle underground," Harry answered knowingly. Mrs. Weasley huffed slightly, which was noticed by most everyone except her husband, who was too excited.

"Anyways, back to the story," Harry said, looking thoughtful. "We got to the Leaky Cauldron, and that was when I actually realized that I was well known in the Wizarding World. Everyone in the bar just went completely silent for a few seconds, and then they were all crowding around me, shaking my hand, patting me on the back. Saying things like 'Welcome back, Mr. Potter!' and 'I can't believe I'm meeting Harry Potter, it's such a pleasure!'"

"That must have been somewhat overwhelming," Remus said. "Suddenly having all that thrust on you, being the center of attention."

"It was. Very," Harry said. "I was surprised, confused. I mean, with the Dursleys, I was practically as exciting as an unwanted rash. Just the ungrateful, abnormal kid who lives with us because his idiot parents went and got themselves murdered."

"Oh, they…" Sirius said scathingly, clutching his wand again. He and Remus shared dark looks, almost as if they were mentally agreeing to go and personally murder the residents of number four themselves. Harry watched them suspiciously for a few seconds, before giving his godfather a warning glare and resuming with his story.

"And suddenly, all these people are treating me like I'm famous. It was very odd. I remember I met a woman named Doris Crockford, because I ended up shaking her hand about six times. I was also introduced to Professor Quirrell, the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher."

Ron and Hermione shifted in their seats next to him and made contemptuous noises. He sent them warning glares as well, getting them to stay silent. He wasn't sure if everyone in the room knew the full story of what had happened that year.

"Eventually, Hagrid managed to drag me away from everyone and out the back door. He opened up the wall and… It was incredible. I remember thinking I wished I had about eight more eyes to look around at everything."

"Merlin, Harry. Absolutely not," Ron said, suppressing a shudder. Harry grinned at him, snickering along with the Twins.

"Anyway, I just looked around at everything in complete amazement. The shops with the cauldrons, owls, potion ingredients, broomsticks, astronomy globes, books, quills, and every other fantastic item I'd never seen before."

"It is truly amazing to walk down that street for the first time," Hermione said, smiling slightly and nodding. "It's like the moment that everything becomes real. When you realize that this world really does exist and you're going to be a part of it."

Those who had grown up in the wizarding world looked like they were trying to understand what Hermione was talking about, while Harry understood completely.

"We made it to Gringotts," Harry said, carrying on and snapping several others out of deep thought. "We went up to one of the goblins and Hagrid gave him my key. And he also gave him a top secret letter from Dumbledore. About some secret business in one of the vaults."

"Secret business?" Sirius asked. At Harry's affirmative nod, he groaned.

"What?" Harry asked.

"Secret business might as well be code for 'trouble'," He said wearily. Harry and Ron snorted, while Hermione rolled her eyes.

"Anyways," Harry said, moving on, "we went to my vault first. And I remember the moment it opened very clearly. There was money inside it. Lots of it."

"Of course! James and Lily wouldn't have left you with nothing!" Sirius said proudly.

"It was a shock though. I hadn't had any pocket money to spend for years. I rarely ever had it. And suddenly, there's this giant pile of money sitting in front of me, with my name on it." Sirius' jaw twitched slightly. Harry ignored it. "Then we went over to the other vault Hagrid needed to visit."

"The secret business vault?" Remus asked.

"Yep," Harry said, nodding. "It just so happened to be a high security vault, too."

"Well, what was in it?" Ginny asked excitedly.

"A single, very small, brown and grubby package lying on the ground in the very middle of the vault," Harry said.

"Oh," Ginny said, sounding disappointed.

"Don't be disappointed so quickly, Ginny," Mr. Weasley said. "Appearances can be deceiving."

Harry snorted.

"You could say that again. Anyway, after that, Hagrid left to go back to the Leaky Cauldron for a bit for a 'pick me up', as he called it," Harry said, adding air quotes.

"He left you alone?" Mrs. Weasley asked worriedly. "To go get a drink!"

"Mrs. Weasley, it was alright. He sent me into Madam Malkins shop before he went," Harry said defensively. "And he was back before my fitting was done. He even brought me back ice cream!"

Mrs. Weasley still looked a little irritated, but Mr. Weasley grabbed her hand and shot her a look. She fell into a grudging silence, similar to the ones Sirius kept falling into.

"Isn't Madam Malkins the first place you met…?" Ron asked, trailing off.

"Oh, yes," Harry said. "She put me on a fitting stool right next to none other than Draco Malfoy."

The Twins both made disgusted faces, and Fred mimed vomiting, earning laughs from most everyone. Though they both stopped upon the look they received from their mother.

"Twitchy little ferret," Hermione mumbled, corners of her lips twitching upwards slightly. Sirius looked at her questioningly, but she just shook her head and said, "Later. Let's just let Harry get on with it."

Sirius looked back to Harry after a few seconds, and he took that as his cue to keep going. "I don't really remember exactly how the conversation went. But I do remember he bragged about how his parents were off looking at brooms and complained about how first years never make the team, he asked me some questions about Quidditch and Hogwarts that I had no idea how to answer, and started being rude about Hagrid when he got back outside with the ice cream."

"What did that little git say about him?" Fred asked.

"Something along the lines of 'He's a savage servant who gets drunk and sets fire to his bed'," Harry said darkly. "And then I told him Hagrid was brilliant."

"Of course he is!" Hermione said immediately. Once again, everyone in the room nodded.

"He then asked me why I was with Hagrid and not my parents. And I told him. They're dead."

"And what did that little twerp say to that?" Ginny asked angrily.

"A very unconvincing 'oh, sorry'. And he asked if they were 'our kind'."

"Our kind?" George asked angrily. "He doesn't mean…"

"Oh yes he does. He asked if they were wizards or not. He said he didn't think they should let the other sort in, because they weren't brought up to know our ways," Harry said bitterly.

"Oh, Harry," Hermione said sympathetically. "What did you say?"

"Nothing. Madam Malkin finished my robes and I just left."

"Good. Leave that little scumbag alone. Don't associate with him on your first day in the wizarding world. You'll get the wrong impression," Ron said angrily. "And you are a wizard! It's not your fault you didn't grow up as one! Even if you were a muggleborn, you still belong here!"

Ron shot a sort of determined look over to Hermione, who smiled back at him.

"That's what Hagrid said too, when I asked him," Harry said. "And I asked him what Quidditch was and about the Hogwarts houses Malfoy mentioned."

"Just imagine. Harry Potter having to ask what Quidditch is. Oliver would've thrown a fit," Fred joked.

Harry chuckled slightly. "I tried not to let Malfoy bother me for the rest of the trip."

"Being the bigger man," Remus said approvingly.

"Then we went over to Flourish and Blotts and got my school books. I wanted to get a book of jinxes to use on Dudley, but Hagrid wouldn't let me," Harry said, grinning. Ron and the Twins laughed. "And we went to the apothecary to pick up potion ingredients. Then Hagrid took me to the Owl Emporium and got me my birthday present."

"Hedwig," Sirius said softly. Harry nodded.

"I told him he didn't have to get me anything, but he insisted. I walked around the whole store, but she was the one who stuck out to me. I went back to her and she flew right onto my shoulder. I knew then that she was mine," Harry said, smiling.

"Aww," Ginny cooed, making most of the men roll their eyes.

"And then I went to get my wand. It took quite a few tries, but I found the right one," Harry said, looking fondly at the table near him he'd laid it.

He looked over at Sirius after a second. He didn't particularly want to share with the whole room that his wand had a connection with Voldemort's, even if he'd told his godfather he wouldn't leave important details out. Sirius already knew that the wands shared twin cores, anyways.

After a second, Sirius nodded, seeming to understand what Harry was asking him. Harry sighed in relief, exceptionally glad he didn't have to tell that secret to several people who probably wouldn't take it very well.

"Then we left Diagon Alley, Hagrid got me a hamburger for dinner, gave me my ticket for the Hogwarts Express, and sent me off on a train back to the Durlseys' with all my new packages."

"You had to go back to them?" Mrs. Weasley asked incredulously.

"Hagrid came on my birthday. There was still a month left to go before school," Harry said, shrugging. "And the Dursleys weren't really horrible to me at all. They basically just ignored me. Which wasn't fun, but it was entirely tolerable."

"They just ignored you?" Hermione asked. "For a whole month?"

"Yeah. Well, all except Dudley, who screamed and ran from a room anytime I entered it."

Both the twins snorted.

"But neither my aunt nor my uncle said a word to me until August thirty first, when I asked for a ride to King's Cross Station the next day…"

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	4. The Journey to Hogwarts

**Hi guys! Thanks for the response I've gotten so far- I never thought it would be this popular! Hope you like chapter four!**

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"Harry, before you go on, can I talk to you for a second?" Sirius asked, standing up and nodding towards the door.

"Sure, Sirius," Harry said, standing and following his godfather out. Sirius led him down to the kitchens, and the whole time he was walking down the stairs, Harry thought about how he thought he knew what Sirius wanted to talk to him about.

They arrived in the kitchen, and after kicking an irritated Kreacher out ("Filthy blood traitors, my poor mistress, what would she say…"), Sirius shut the door and turned to look at Harry. It seemed like he wasn't quite sure what he wanted to say for a few moments.

"Harry," he said finally, "Listen. You should never have had to live with the Dursleys. A slug doesn't deserve that sort of treatment. I am so sorry that I wasn't-"

"Sirius, please," Harry said, interrupting him. "If you're about to apologize for not being around and being in Azkaban, don't. You don't need to."

"But, Prongslet… If I never went after Peter, I wouldn't have gone to Azkaban. I could have convinced Dumbledore to let you come and live with me. I'm your godfather. I'm the one your parents wanted you to go to if something happened to them. And I messed that all up."

"Sirius, you-" Harry tried to say, but this time Sirius interrupted him, pacing back and forth, clearly very distraught.

"But I did! It was my idea to switch the secret keeper to Peter! And it was my idea not to tell anyone! So many times I've thought… If only I hadn't come up with that idiotic idea. If only we'd told Dumbledore. If I had been the secret keeper. I caused the death of two of my best friends! And I caused you ten years of living with your horrible muggles of relatives! They mistreated you!"

Sirius finally stopped and sat down at the table, putting his head in his hands. Harry walked over to him, unsure of how to respond.

"Sirius," he said after a second, "It's not your fault. You were betrayed by one of your best friends. It's natural you would want to confront him. And the Dursleys didn't mistreat me."

"Yes they did," Sirius responded in a hollow tone. "You slept in a cupboard! And they made you cook breakfast, do chores, made you wear your cousins' old clothes… They spoiled their son beyond belief and gave you nothing. And they even let him attack you!"

"Alright, so I wasn't as happy as I could have been. But I dealt with it!"

"You shouldn't have had to," Sirius mumbled again.

"Didn't we go over this before? No getting upset over things that are over and done with," Harry said, trying to remind him.

"But Harry, something like this…" Sirius said wearily, looking up at his godson.

"No buts! I have a feeling that there might be several 'things like this'. And if you get this upset every time, it's going to be a very long night."

Sirius looked at him warily, before he seemed to decide he didn't want to ask. He chuckled after a second. "You know, you seem to be acting more like the godfather than I am right now," he said gruffly.

Harry laughed too. "Well, you know, you were saying it before. I'm not a little kid."

"And that's true. You're proving it today. Being an adult, telling us all of this stuff," Sirius said approvingly.

"Yeah, even if I don't get told everything back in return," Harry said gloomily, picking at a spot on the table.

"I'm sorry about that too. You know if it were up to me, I would have told you everything by now," Sirius said. "But Dumbledore…"

Harry shook his head. "I know, I know. Because Dumbledore said so. Wish I could have asked him about that today." I wish I could have asked him anything, he thought, though he kept it to himself.

They both stood up to leave, but Harry stopped and said, "Oh, and Sirius? With my wand… Thanks."

"No problem. I can understand you not wanting to share that with everyone."

Harry nodded again and they made their way back upstairs to the drawing room. As soon as they walked through the door, Harry looked around, realizing that most everyone was looking at him with slightly guilty expressions. He rolled his eyes, figuring they must have just stopped talking about him. He went and sat back down by Ron and Hermione.

"So. I was at King's Cross station, then," he said, everyone settling back down to listen again. "I woke up really early that morning, I was so excited. And when I finally got to King's Cross, it was about half ten, I believe. Uncle Vernon put my trunk on a trolley and pushed it into the station for me-"

"Why?" Fred asked suspiciously.

"What is he being nice for?" George asked.

"Well, he dropped all my stuff at platforms nine and ten, nasty grin in place, and said something along the lines of 'Platforms nine and ten. Yours should be in the middle there, but they don't seem to have built it yet, eh?' Then he left me there with no idea what to do, and they all drove away laughing."

"Didn't Hagrid tell you how to get on the Platform?" Remus asked, looking worried.

"Nope. All he did was give me the ticket," Harry answered.

"But your aunt knew how to get on the platform! She knew! She came with Lily when she went off to Hogwarts!" Remus said angrily.

"How did you get on the platform then?" Sirius asked worriedly. Harry and Ron exchanged grins, and the rest of the Weasleys were looking oddly proud.

"Well, I went and asked a guard, but he just got frustrated with me. And there were only ten minutes left, I was starting to panic. When a group of people rushed by and I overheard them saying something about muggles."

"Oh thank god," Remus said. "A wizard family."

"And not just any family, either. A kind looking woman with five children, all with red hair…" Harry said, unable to keep a smile off his face along with the Weasleys.

"The Weasleys," Remus said happily. "I should have known." Sirius laughed.

"Oh yeah, the Weasleys. And I saw that they had trunks and an owl. So I followed them and got close enough to hear what they were saying."

"Eavesdropping already?" Remus asked, a small smile playing around his mouth.

"Well, it was either that or stay at the station," Harry said. "Anyways, I watched the oldest boy, Percy (There were a few angry noises heard from around the room) go through, and I had no clue what had happened. He'd just disappeared. Then I saw two very identical boys, so identical their mother couldn't even tell them apart, went through."

Fred and George high fived, while others laughed.

"And finally, I decided I'd have to ask. So I did." Harry smiled. "I was then introduced to another fellow first year," he said, looking at Ron. "And Mrs. Weasley told me how to get through. And I managed it alright."

"And thank goodness," Mrs. Weasley said. "I'm so glad you asked, Harry, dear."

"So am I. I met the best family in the world," Harry said, aware that was a very sappy statement. Mrs. Weasley's eyes even started to tear up. "Anyways, it was kind of like Diagon Alley again. I just wanted to look around at everything. Though I couldn't, I was running out of time. So I went and picked myself out an empty compartment, and set about putting my things in it. I had to get a little help with my trunk though, it was a bit too heavy for me to lift my myself. And that help came from that pair of twins from before…"

"Yeah, and we managed to catch a glimpse of your scar. And we asked 'Are you?'" Fred said.

"And you asked "Am I what?" George said.

"And we said 'Harry Potter', of course," said Fred.

"And you said, 'Oh him'," said George. The others started laughing, while Harry rolled his eyes again.

"I'll never forget that," Fred said. "Oh him. Brilliant."

"Oh, hush up," Harry said, glaring. "I wasn't used to being recognized then! Anyways, I stayed in my compartment and watched that family. And I remember the Twins telling the others all about who that black haired boy from the station was."

"And a certain little girl begging to go see him," Fred said innocently. Ginny gave him a fierce glare, which he quailed under slightly.

"And then the Twin named George offered to send that certain little girl a Hogwarts toilet seat," Harry said. Fred and George laughed.

"Oh yeah, I forgot about that," Ginny said. "How come I never got one?"

"Because I would not have permitted it," Mrs. Weasley said sternly. The Twins shrugged, identical grins on their faces.

"Anyway, the train departed, and I sat there staring out the window for a few minutes. Before the compartment door opened and the youngest red haired boy came in, asking if he could sit with me. And we ended up talking about random things. Yes, I am Harry Potter. No, I don't remember anything about the night my parents died, except a bunch of green light."

"Ronald! I told you not to ask about that!" Mrs. Weasley said sharply. Ron paled a little.

"Actually, you told them not to ask," he replied, pointing at the Twins. "You never told me not to."

Harry could sense a telling off coming up, and he quickly started talking again. "It was just fine Mrs. Weasley, I didn't mind! And after a while the trolley came by. I was really very hungry, and I had money for once, so I bought some of everything."

"Some of everything?" Sirius asked, looking surprised.

"I didn't want to miss out on anything," Harry shrugged. "I'd never tried any of it before. And it's not like I ate it all myself. I shared some with Ron."

"Thanks again, mate," Ron said. He looked over to his empty ice cream bowl and frowned, making a few of the others laugh. "Hey mum, could I have more-?"

"No," she replied, glaring, obviously still irritated at his lack of obedience from the years previous.

"Anyways," Harry said, starting to get sick of that word and how often he used it, "we sat there eating the sweets and pasties for a while. I got my very first Chocolate frog card- Dumbledore. That's how I discovered that pictures moved in the wizarding world, coincidentally. And I also had my first go at a box of Every Flavor Beans, as well."

"Oh, I remember that," Ron said, still a bit grumpy about his lack of ice cream. "Didn't you get one that was grass flavored? And you tried a pepper one too, right?"

"Yeah, you weren't brave enough to try the pepper one," Harry said teasingly.

"I've had enough experience with those to be doubtful," Ron said. Harry shook his head, grinning.

"Then a tearful, round faced boy showed up asking if we'd seen a toad," Harry said.

"Neville," most of the students chorused, knowing full well about Trevor's knack at getting lost.

"But he left after a minute, and then Ron showed me his pet," Harry said coolly.

"Scabbers," Ron said, narrowing his eyes and looking very cross indeed. A look over at the two Marauders showed they didn't look any happier.

"And you tried to turn him yellow with that spell Fred gave you," Harry said. A metal picture of a yellow Peter Pettigrew came into his head. He snorted.

"You actually tried to use that spell?" Fred asked, laughing. He high fived George again.

"How was I supposed to know it was a dud?" Ron asked, irritated.

"But that round faced boy came back right before he tried," Harry said, trying to pull the conversation back on topic yet again. "And he was accompanied by a girl this time."

"With loads of bushy brown hair and a bossy sort of voice," Ron said. Hermione looked a little bit sheepish.

"And she talked very fast about a lot of things. I remember her saying she'd learned all the course books by heart, tried a few spells already and had them work, did loads of background reading, and knew what house she wanted to be in. She then told us we ought to start gathering our things a bit because we should be arriving soon, and left," Harry said. Hermione went a little pink as most everyone turned to look at her.

"I may have been a little bit… Eager first year," Hermione said defensively.

"Eager?" Fred asked, looking scandalized.

"Try insane," George added.

"Oh, shut up, the both of you," Hermione said, crossing her arms.

"So, we just hung out for a little while after they left. And then," Harry said darkly, "that pale boy from Madam Malkins showed up, followed by two of his cronies. Both of which were massive."

"Crabbe and Goyle," Ron sneered.

"And Malfoy insulted Ron and his family, and then offered to be my friend. I very quickly declined," Harry stated.

"Good. Don't be friends with that slimy git," Ginny said. Mrs. Weasley turned to look at her with an expression that clearly said 'watch your language', but Ginny just shrugged.

"Then he told me I had better watch myself, because hanging with riffraff like Hagrid and the Weasleys would rub off on me and I'd go the same was as my parents," Harry said bitterly.

"He what?" Sirius asked darkly. He looked about ready to go and curse someone again.

"We told him to get out after that," Harry said quickly. "Though they didn't, and Goyle reached for a few of the sweets we had left. But in the one good thing Scabbers ever did, he bit Goyle and ended up chasing them out."

"I don't believe it. Peter? Doing something good for you?" Sirius said scathingly. "I would have thought he'd just cower in among the food instead."

Harry shrugged. "But then that bushy haired girl named Hermione came back and bossily scolded us for fighting, telling us to change into our robes because we were nearly there. So we did, and about five minutes later, the train finally came to a stop."

"That's a very eventful train ride," Remus said, half amused.

"Oh believe me. Compared to the other journeys we've had… That was pretty uneventful," Harry said, looking over at Ron, who shook his head, remembering their second year. Sirius looked a bit concerned at that.

"Anyhow, we made it to Hogwarts in one piece. And so begins the really interesting parts of this story…"

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	5. The Sorting

**Here's the fifth chapter! I hope you all enjoy! Oh, and thanks to my Twin for beta-ing! =D**

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"So, we made it to Hogwarts. No injuries or anything, for once. We all got off the train, and then we heard 'Firs' years! Firs' years over here!'" Harry said.

"Hagrid," the students, as well as the Marauders in the room said collectively, all having the experience of hearing Hagrid calling them over their first year.

"Of course," Harry said happily. "He asked me how I was. And we all followed him down to the lake, where we got our first view of Hogwarts."

"Always amazing," Remus mused. "Even when I was teaching. I hadn't seen the castle in years and years, so the first time I saw it then... It almost seemed like the first time again."

"And I have to admit," Sirius said, "when I showed up at the castle that year, I experienced that too. All of my thoughts were on getting to Peter, but the first view I got of the castle… I did stop to admire it."

"It's impossible not to," Ginny said. "It's beautiful."

"It is," Harry agreed slowly. "Then we got into the boats and sailed across the lake. Hagrid handed us over to Professor McGonagall, and she led us into that little side chamber, where she gave us the whole talk about how you'll be sorted into a house, your house is like your family, you can gain or lose points for the house cup, et cetera."

"Oh, yes, I remember that talk. She seemed to look at James and I when she said 'lose points'. I think she knew right away that we were going to be trouble," Sirius said, chuckling.

"She does have an eye for that sort of thing," George said.

"She knows everything," Fred said agreeably. "The number of times she's caught us and we have no idea how…"

"Though the number of times we haven't been caught is still pretty hefty," George added smugly. Both Mr. and Mrs. Weasley looked like they were about to ask exactly how many times they hadn't been caught, but Harry, seeing that, began talking again.

"So we were all there in the little chamber, nervous and wondering exactly what we'd have to do to be sorted. And Ron said that Fred had told him that it was some sort of test that hurt a lot…" he said, looking over at the Twin.

"Oh, come on, I was joking!" Fred said in response to most of the adults, who turned to look at him.

"Fred, why on earth would you scare your brother like that!" Mrs. Weasley scolded. "He was already nervous enough!"

"Mum. I was joking," Fred said again. She swelled up a little bit, looking like she was about to say something along the lines of 'I don't care if you were joking or not', when Fred turned back to Harry, saying, "Continue, Harry, please. I'm eager to hear more of this story."

Harry sniggered before he continued. "Nobody talked much, except that Hermione, who was whispering very fast about all of those spells she'd learned, wondering which one she'd need to use," Harry said then, looking over at his friend.

She just trained her eyes on her hands, missing most of the amused glances sent her way. Ron snorted. Hermione shot him a look and he tried to disguise the smile on his face, though miserably failed.

"Didn't the ghosts come in then, Harry?" she asked, changing the topic.

"Oh yeah, I forgot about that. Weren't they arguing over whether or not to let Peeves come to the feast?" Harry said thoughtfully.

"Oh good lord, that would be a fiasco," Remus said.

"That's what Nick was saying. Before they noticed all of us standing there. Though McGonagall showed up pretty quickly after that, shooing them all off. And then she led us into the Great Hall."

"That's another thing that's amazing when you first see it," Hermione pointed out. "The Great Hall. All the candles and the enchanted ceiling."

"Which you were quick to point out was enchanted, because you'd read it in _Hogwarts, A History,_" Ron said. She swatted his arm.

"Anyways, McGonagall put the hat down on the stool. I remember wondering if we were going to have to try to get a rabbit out of it," Harry said amusedly.

"Like the muggle magicians?" Mr. Weasley asked proudly.

"Yeah, like that," Harry said, nodding. "Then the Sorting Hat sang its song, and everyone applauded. And so the sorting began. And of course, whenever you're waiting like that, horrible thoughts start going through your mind. And I thought of how I was always picked last in gym class because no one wanted Dudley to think they liked me. I also wondered what would happen if I put on the hat and I sat there for ages and the had didn't make a decision and if McGonagall would tell me I'd have to get back on the train to the muggles because there had been some sort of mistake."

"Harsh," George said, raising his eyebrows.

"I know," Harry said, near laughing at his past self. Though a sudden thought stopped that.

The Sorting Hat had almost put him in Slytherin. He paled for a second, remembering his promise to his godfather to tell them everything, regardless of whether he really wanted to or not. But, he'd never told anyone that before, apart from Dumbledore, who wasn't there at the moment. No one could point out that he hadn't mentioned it. And he wanted to keep it to himself.

Fred was saying something, and most everyone's attention was on him. But when he looked over at Sirius, Harry saw that he was watching him. Harry picked up his wand a little bit, giving his godfather a somewhat pleading look, hoping he'd understand that it was something similar to not wanting to share about his wand and the twin cores. Sirius looked confused for a second before his eyes widened, seemingly understanding, and he nodded.

Harry smiled in relief that Sirius had understood what he was trying to communicate.

"So anyways," he said happily, "As the sorting went on, Hermione went in Gryffindor. We watched Malfoy get Slytherin. The hat barely even touched his head. Then a few people later, I went up, and I remember the hat telling me I was very difficult."

"You are very difficult," Ron muttered. Harry looked at him as everyone chuckled.

"What? You are! You're incredibly stubborn!"

Harry just shook his head and continued talking. "But finally, the hat put me in Gryffindor." He snuck a look over at Sirius, who looked a bit confused about why he had something he didn't want to share. "And I went and sat down, several people congratulating me. Like the Twins shouting 'We got Potter! We got Potter!', if I remember right." The Twins just grinned at him.

"Then a bit later, Ron was sorted, and as soon as everyone was settled, Dumbledore stood up and welcomed everyone. I'll never forget what he said. 'I'd like to say a few words. Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak! Thank you!' And then he sat back down and the food appeared."

"Only Dumbledore," Mrs. Weasley said, shaking her head.

"Anyways, we ended up talking to Nearly Headless Nick, who showed us why he got that nickname. The desserts showed up, and we started talking about our families, and now I realize blood purity and those things. Though then it was just more of an interesting fact than something that really mattered to anybody. And a few others were talking about lessons and things like that."

"Three guesses who that would have been," Fred said, looking over at Hermione. She just rolled her eyes again.

"I was starting to feel a bit sleepy then. But I remember well that I looked up to the staff table, and I saw a greasy haired, hook nosed teacher talking to Professor Quirrell. When very suddenly, he turned and looked at me. And a very sharp, hot pain was suddenly shooting across my scar."

"Your scar hurt?" Sirius asked, very alarmed. "But that means that Voldemort was close by, doesn't it?"

Everyone else was looking extremely worried and confused as well.

"I had no idea what it meant then," Harry said, shrugging. "I just knew that that greasy haired teacher looked over at me and suddenly my scar hurt. It had never hurt before."

"Why would your scar hurt when Snape looked at you?" Sirius asked angrily.

"I had absolutely no clue," Harry said, watching his godfather, almost waiting for an outburst.

"Did you tell anyone?" Sirius demanded.

"No, I didn't think it was necessary," Harry said. "I mean, it was barely a second of pain. Just really quick. And Dumbledore started talking then, anyways, giving out all of the start of term notices."

"How could Voldemort have been near you, though? You're at school," Sirius mused, concerned.

Harry just shrugged again, eager to move on. He knew Sirius wasn't going to want to give it up easily. "Anyways, Dumbledore told us all of the notices. Quidditch tryouts, Filch's list of banned items. And also, he told us to stay out of the third floor corridor, right hand side, unless we wanted to die a particularly painful death."

"What's that about?" Sirius asked worriedly.

"And why do I feel like that corridor is going to come into play before this story is over?" Remus asked tiredly.

Harry avoided both of the Marauders gazes, muttering a quick, "No comment." Sirius groaned.

"Anyway, before we went to bed, Dumbledore had us all sing the school song. He seemed to get a kick out of that. Especially the fact that you two sang it to the tune of a funeral march and ended up singing the last six lines by yourselves," Harry said, turning and facing the Twins.

"He said pick your favorite tune!" Fred said.

"Yeah, and we felt like singing a funeral march!" George added.

A few people chuckled. "And then the prefects gathered us all up and lead us up to Gryffindor Tower. We did get sidetracked a little bit by Peeves, though," Harry said thoughtfully.

"Yeah, didn't he drop a bunch of walking sticks on Neville's head?" Ron asked, amused. Harry chuckled.

"I think so. But we made it up to the Tower, and the prefects showed us around a little bit before we headed up to the dorms and made ourselves comfortable for the night."

"Mate?" Ron asked quietly. Harry turned to him questioningly, and he said, "Did you have a bad dream that night or something?"

"Why do you ask that?"

"Because I kind of remember waking up that night and thought I heard you moving around restlessly or something," Ron answered.

Harry thought for a few moments. "I don't think I did, but maybe I just don't remember," Harry said slowly. He racked his brains, thinking hard, almost coming up with something. It was like he knew the memory was there, under the surface, but he just couldn't see it. It was forgotten for too long.

But after a second, it slowly started coming back to him in pieces. He vaguely remembered waking up, drenched in cold sweat. And possibly the high, cold, cruel laugh that accompanied the flash of green light. Though it was very fuzzy in his mind.

"I think I dreamt about Voldemort," he said slowly, face screwed up in concentration.

"Oh, Harry. You dreamt about Voldemort on your first night at school?" Hermione asked, a little sadly.

"I… might have," he replied, still thinking hard. "Though who knows. I've been dreaming about him so much lately, I might just be making that up."

He received a few sympathetic glances, which he rolled his eyes at. He was starting to get a bit sick of that.

The pain in his scar suddenly started up again, searing across his forehead and making him wince. And that only caused more sympathetic glances to come his way. "I think I'm going to go get some tea before I keep going," he said, wanting to escape from the room for a few minutes until the pain subsided.

He got up and walked out, not really looking to see what anyone's reaction was. He rubbed his scar angrily as he entered the kitchen, willing it to subside back into its now usual prickling. He found the teabags and a mug from the cupboards, and he set about making the tea. Just as he was pulling the teabag out of the hot water, he heard a noise behind him and said, "Sirius, you can come in; you don't have to stand outside the door."

His godfather walked in, looking slightly sheepish. "Sorry, but you seemed a bit irritated before."

"My scar," Harry mumbled.

"Ah," Sirius said, nodding. "Listen, before, I guessed you had something else that you didn't really want to share with everyone."

"You guessed right," Harry said, taking a sip of the hot tea.

"If you don't want to tell me, I don't suppose you'd have to," Sirius said.

"The Sorting Hat wanted to put me in Slytherin," Harry said quickly. He took another sip of tea calmly, looking at his godfather after a second.

He looked slightly surprised. "Oh. Well, that's not so bad, Harry. You ended up in Gryffindor, didn't you?"

"Only because I asked to be," Harry said. He rubbed his forehead again and got up, taking his tea with him, leaving his surprised godfather sitting at the table. He went to step out the door to make his way back to the Drawing Room, but hesitated slightly, feeling bad about being somewhat rude. "Sirius?" His godfather turned his head slightly towards him. "Are you coming?"

"You go ahead. I'll come back in a minute."

"Alright," Harry said, walking out into the hall and back upstairs, wondering what his godfather was thinking of, and trying to work out what exactly came next in his long tale of increasingly more exciting events.

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	6. The First Week

**Here it is guys! Chapter six! Enjoy! =D**

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Harry walked back into the Drawing Room, still thinking hard about what had just happened. Sirius couldn't possibly be that upset by what he'd just said. Honestly, Sirius should know more than anyone that not all Slytherins were bad. He'd had several fair relatives in Slytherin, hadn't he? And it's not like he was actually put in Slytherin.

Harry mused that over as he went and sat back down, and it was a few moments before he realized that everyone was looking over at him, all silent. He cleared his throat and took a sip of tea before he set the mug down on the table near him.

"Where's Sirius, Harry?" Hermione asked. He should've known that she would have put it together that Sirius was coming to talk to him.

"He'll be back in a few minutes," Harry said quickly. Hermione fell silent, still looking at him, seemingly a bit concerned.

There was an awkward silence for a few minutes as they waited for his godfather to return. Harry kept looking up at the others, and they either looked away from him quickly or sent him an awkward smile. He loved everyone in that room, but at the moment they were all getting on his nerves.

Remus was just on the point of getting up and going to find Sirius, when he walked through the door and settled himself down in his chair. "Sirius. We were getting worried," Remus stated.

"Over me? Nothing to worry about. Everything's fine," Sirius said, waving his hand dismissively.

"Alright," Remus said, looking like he didn't quite believe that everything was really fine, but didn't really want to get into anything at the moment. "Well, Harry. Why don't you continue, then?"

Harry nodded. "Well, then the next day, classes started. And they were your average beginning of the term classes."

"Remember the first morning?" Ron asked suddenly, chuckling. "We got lost and had no clue where we were, and ended up trying to get into the third floor corridor that was off bounds. And got caught doing that by Filch."

"How'd you get out of that one?" Fred asked, laughing. Most everyone else was chuckling as well. Harry managed a little smile that quickly disappeared.

"How did we get out of that?" Ron asked, looking over to Harry.

"Quirrell came by and rescued us," Harry said darkly.

"Oh, right," Ron said. He was looking quite angry again. Harry shot a look over at Sirius, who had his head resting on his hand, looking very thoughtful. It was as if he hadn't heard anything that had been said. He hadn't reacted at all. Harry scoffed a little.

"Anyway, finding the classes was always an adventure, and once you found them, they were always difficult. But they were interesting enough to make up for it. Herbology, Astronomy, History of Magic, Charms, Transfiguration, Defense Against the Dark Arts. I think that was probably the most normal week we've spent at that school," Harry said. Ron chuckled again and agreed.

"And then Hagrid invited me to come over to his cabin at the end of that week. He said he knew we got the afternoon off. Which was good, because we had our first Potions lesson that day. And that was the day I found out that yes, Snape really does hate me."

"Oh, he doesn't hate you," Remus said. Harry could tell it was a little halfhearted, though. Harry looked over at him, eyebrows raised, and Remus said, "Just a strong dislike."

Harry snorted. "Sure. A strong dislike," he said disbelievingly. "Anyway, Snape gave his whole first year speech. Bottle fame, brew glory, stopper death, simmering cauldrons and all that."

Fred and George looked at each other and stood up, reciting the speech and imitating Snape's prowling walk and his trademark sneer, earning much laugher from everyone. Only Mrs. Weasley looked a little bit annoyed at them.

"You are all here to learn the subtle science and exact art of potion making. As there is little silly wand waving here, many of you will scarcely believe this is magic. I don't expect you will really understand the beauty of the softly bubbling cauldron with its shimmering fumes, the delicate power of liquids that creep through human veins, bewitching the mind, ensnaring the senses… I can teach you how to bottle fame, brew glory, and even stopper death…"

There was a round of applause as they took a bow and sat down. "Why would you two have memorized Snape's first year speech?" Ginny asked, giggling.

"Because we always listen to our dear teachers," George said.

"Everything they say is important!" Fred added.

This time, even Mrs. Weasley couldn't stop the smile from forming on her face. The entire room cracked up.

"Anyway, Snape suddenly turned to me and started asking me a bunch of questions that I had no idea how to answer. Where do you find something or what is the difference of something and something, I don't know. All I remember is the Slytherins were laughing and they were things I knew nothing about. Though Hermione knew. She kept raising her hand," Harry said, looking over at his friend.

"Yeah, because she memorized the course books by heart," Ron mumbled, making her swat his arm again.

"Though, when I told Snape to ask her, he took a house point for my 'cheek'," Harry said sourly.

"He asked you all of these questions in your first class?" Remus asked, surprised. Harry nodded. "But if it's your first class, that's completely unfair."

"Tell me about it," Harry said. "And then when Neville added an ingredient wrong or something, he melted the cauldron and got himself covered in boils. And Snape took a point from me for not stopping him. I was working with Ron at the next cauldron, I wasn't even paying attention to what Neville was doing."

"He punished you for another student's mistake?" Remus asked incredulously.

"I told you. He hates me. He looks for any excuse to take points or grade my work unfairly, while he favors his own house," Harry said.

"Even if Hermione does it perfectly, like she always does, he doesn't say anything, or points out something trivial, and goes off to reward the stinking Slytherins," Ron added, looking quite put off.

"Not all Slytherins are bad, though."

Everyone looked up at Sirius. "What?" Harry asked.

"Not all Slytherins are bad. It's proven. There are plenty of wonderful Slytherins out there in the world."

Harry looked at him suspiciously. He could tell that Sirius was trying to make it known that even if he'd been in Slytherin, it would have been alright. While he appreciated, he was still a little bit irritated that he'd waited so long to do it. The others were all giving him very odd looks.

"Yeah," Harry said, nodding. He was slightly relieved though, now. "Anyway, after that we went to visit Hagrid. I introduced Ron and he gave us some of his famous rock cakes."

"Which you most likely didn't eat too many of," Hermione said knowingly.

"Our pockets may or may not have been full of rock cakes we were too polite to refuse but too smart to eat when we left," Ron said.

"And we talked about classes for a while, and about how Snape hates me. Though Hagrid didn't seem to think he did. And I ended up finding a newspaper article about how there was a break in at Gringotts. On my birthday. Which was the day we were there. And the article said that the vault that was broken into had been emptied earlier that day," Harry said.

"There was a break in? It could have happened while you were there! You could have been attacked by thugs!" Mrs. Weasley said worriedly.

"Don't worry, Mrs. Weasley. Hagrid wouldn't have let them beat me up or anything," Harry said. He looked over at Ginny, noticing that she was looking like she had just realized something.

"The little package," she said softly.

"What, Ginny dear?" Mrs. Weasley asked.

"The little package that Hagrid took out of that vault. You said it was top secret business. Couldn't that be what the thief tried to get?" she asked. Harry nodded, slightly impressed.

"You came to the same conclusion I did. And when I said to Hagrid, 'that break in might have happened while we were there' he just offered me another cake," Harry said.

"Well, that's suspicious," George said.

Remus was looking very thoughtful again. He and Sirius exchanged glances again. "What?" Harry asked, looking over at the two of them.

"Well, we now know that it definitely is something very important. And probably dangerous. And now that your curiosity was piqued, you probably won't let it go," Sirius said.

"That is a near perfect description of him," Ron said, pointing over at Harry, who rolled his eyes.

"It actually is, though," Hermione said. "Once something has caught your interest, you don't leave it alone until it's fully investigated."

"Oh, whatever," Harry said, eager to move on. "Nothing really important happened then, for about another week, until… Flying Lessons."

Ron immediately sat up straight, grinning, making Harry laugh.

"I don't really think I was too nervous about flying. I'd never even touched a broomstick before, but I wasn't too worried, for some reason. Maybe it was the fact that Malfoy always talked about how he was always riding his broom around. If he could do it, then I obviously could," Harry said. Ron and the Twins both sniggered.

"Because you've got twice the talent of that little git," Fred said happily.

"Thank you," Harry said, nodding over at him. "And at breakfast that morning, all the talk was about flying, I remember. You and Seamus were talking about your own narrow escapes on broomsticks," Harry said, looking over at Ron.

"Oh, like the time I almost hit a hang-glider when I was ten?" Ron asked, laughing.

"You what?" Mrs. Weasley asked, looking over at him sternly.

"I mean, I almost hit a flying bird," Ron said quickly.

"Ronald, don't you start with me," she said. "If you were seen by a muggle you could have-"

"Molly, dear. It's all in the past now," Mr. Weasley said calmingly. "No use getting upset over it now."

She looked back at Ron for a few seconds, who grinned sheepishly, before she crossed her arms and fell silent.

"And Hermione was spouting off facts and tips that she'd learned from a book in the library," Harry said, moving right along. "Neville was listening very hard to what she said, seeing as his grandmother hadn't ever let him near a broom either."

"And look what happened to him when he did get on one," Ron said, shaking his head.

"What? What happened?" Ginny asked eagerly.

"You'll see," Harry said. "The only thing that stopped him from listening to everything Hermione said was the package his gran sent him. A remembrall."

"A remembrall? That would probably be good for Neville, he is quite forgetful," Remus said amusedly.

"Unfortunately, Malfoy passed by as we were looking at it and grabbed it from him," Harry said, irritated.

"He is the definition of a playground bully, isn't he?" Sirius asked, shaking his head.

"Oh yeah. He is," Ron said. "You just wait. You haven't even heard anything yet."

Sirius looked skeptical again.

"Well anyways, Ron and I were practically ready to fight him for it. We were almost looking for an excuse. He's just always so annoying, and picking on others."

"But there weren't any fights breaking out, now were there?" Mrs. Weasley asked.

"Well, no. Not really. There was a little debacle, but it all worked out in the end," Harry said. She looked quite sternly at him, and he said, "You'll see. It was all for the best! Anyways, we were ready to fight him to help Neville get his remembrall back, but McGonagall showed up almost immediately and put a stop to that."

"See? She just knows all that goes on in that school," Fred said, accentuating his point from before.

"She does!" Harry agreed. "And she proved it during our flying lesson, too…"

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**And thank you to my Twin for being an awesome beta, as always. XD**


	7. Flying and a Fluffy Encounter

**Here's chapter seven! Enjoy!**

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"Harry, why would McGonagall be anywhere near your flying lesson?" Sirius groaned, knowing that there was probably going to be some sort of rule breaking involved.

Harry chose not to answer that question, much to his godfather, and indeed Remus', annoyance. "So, flying lessons. We had them with the Slytherins. Of course."

"Wish they'd stop lumping us with them so often. We get on much better with the Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs. Why do they put us with the house that we have a mutual loathing for?" Ron said. He looked around, almost waiting for an answer, but only received blank looks and shrugs back.

"Maybe Dumbledore thinks that putting the Gryffindors and Slytherins together all the time would help them make friends?" Ginny suggested.

"Yeah, but I would think that after all this time, he would know that's never going to happen," Sirius said.

"Dumbledore believes in a lot of impossible things," Remus said wisely, making a few others laugh.

"Well, anyways, we went down to our first flying lesson with the Slytherins," Harry said. "And when Madam Hooch got there we started straight away. She set us up with a broom each, and we had to do the whole 'put your hand over the broom and shout up' thing."

"I remember that," Sirius said. "One girl in our class tried it and the broom ended up careening into the Slytherins. It was excellent."

A few people snorted, and the Weasley Twins both exclaimed, "Brilliant!"

"Well, Harry's jumped up into his hand right away," Ron said proudly.

"Of course it did. You're James's son," Sirius said, just as proud.

Harry smiled a little bit. "And then she had us get on them and try to take off. But Neville was really nervous about it and ended up taking off before she blew the whistle. And he went up, and up, and up…. And then hit the ground hard."

Everyone made a face at that.

"It must have been, what, thirty feet?" Ron asked. Hermione nodded.

"Something like that," she replied. "He broke his wrist, Madam Hooch took him to the hospital wing. And before she left she told us that we were to stay off our brooms or we'd be expelled.."

"And as soon as they were far away enough, Malfoy started making fun of Neville," Harry said grimly. "And he found Neville's remembrall sitting in the grass."

"Oh, that can't be good," Mr. Weasley said. Ron was suddenly looking very excited.

"So I told him to give it to me," Harry said.

"Yeah. And your tone of voice made everyone stop and look at you," Ron said, practically laughing.

"Well, I'd had enough of Malfoy always being rude to everyone and thinking he can do whatever he wanted," Harry explained. "So when he said he was gonna leave it up a tree and jumped on his broomstick…"

"Oh, Harry. You didn't," Sirius said wearily.

"He's Harry. Of course he did," Fred said quickly.

"I grabbed my broom and I followed him," Harry said.

"And it was your first time on a broom as well," Sirius groaned.

"It was. But I found it to be… easy. Wonderful. It was like I'd always known how to fly," Harry said, deep in thought. "The look on Malfoy's face was incredible. He was completely shocked. It would have been funny, if I wasn't so mad."

"Ah. One of the first times we've seen Harry's famous temper," George said. Harry gave him a look as if to say 'really? You're going there?' Both the Twins grinned back, and Harry rolled his eyes.

"Anyway, I rushed him, and he barely got out of the way. And then he took the remembrall and he chucked it as hard as he could, speeding back to the ground where he was safe."

"That little twerp," Fred said calmly, shaking his head.

"I couldn't let the remembrall break. So I dived after it. I had to save it. I heard a few people scream, but I didn't really pay attention. My focus was on the remembrall, catching it," Harry said.

"And you did. A foot from the ground after a fifty foot dive. And then you just pulled out of the dive and just gently hit the ground like it was nothing," Ron said.

"You did that your first time on a broom?" Sirius asked, shocked and clearly impressed. Most everyone else was looking quite impressed as well. Harry nodded.

"Yes, and then Professor McGonagall came running out of nowhere," Hermione said.

"How could she be mad after that, though? Did you even get hurt at all?" Sirius asked.

"No. I was perfectly fine," Harry answered.

"Well, then that's impressive! How could she get so mad over that? You weren't even hurt! And you were standing up to a bully!" Sirius said.

"Oh she managed it, alright. 'Never have I ever, you could have broken your neck, how dare you' and all that," Harry said. "I was half terrified. Madam Hooch had said if anyone got on their broom they'd be expelled."

"That would be a frightening experience," Remus nodded, looking thoughtful. "Though you obviously weren't expelled, so we can assume that worked itself out somehow?"

"Well, she took me inside the castle and led me to a classroom. Then she asked the teacher if she could borrow Wood for a moment."

"Wood? What's a wood?" Sirius asked.

"That's what I wondered. I had the wild thought that wood was a cane she might use on me, but, as it turned out, it wasn't."

"A cane? Harry, they would never use a cane on you at Hogwarts!" Remus said immediately.

"I know. It was just a moment of panic. Wild thoughts were running through my head. I thought I was going to be expelled!" Harry explained.

"Physical punishments are not allowed at Hogwarts!" Remus said again, adamant that Harry should know and understand that statement.

"Yeah, Harry. Not even for Professor Moody!" Ron said, making Harry and Hermione both laugh.

"And not even on twitchy little ferrets!" Hermione said.

Most of the others were looking very confused, not to mention curious, but Harry just said, "Later. You'll find out later. It'll definitely come up."

"It has to be something good, because this is the second time something about a ferret was mentioned,"  
Remus said smartly.

"And it will be. All in good time. But right now we're talking about how McGonagall was taking me to see Wood," Harry said.

"Yes. So what is wood?" Sirius asked.

"Ah, dear Sirius. The question is not what," Fred said.

"It is who," George said, finishing off the thought.

"Who?" Sirius asked, slightly confused.

"That's right, who," Harry said. "Oliver Wood, Quidditch Captain."

"She took you to see the Quidditch Captain?" Sirius asked excitedly, a grin breaking out on his face.

"Yes she did. She introduced me to him and then said, and I'll never forget this, 'Wood! I've found you a seeker!" Harry said happily.

Sirius gave a delighted laugh. No one else could contain their smiles either. "Trust you to go doing something illegal and then get placed on the Quidditch team by the head of house for doing it. You are your father's son," Sirius said, shaking his head.

"It is true, though," Hermione said. "While you do have a knack for getting yourself into trouble, you have an even greater knack at getting yourself out of it again."

Harry laughed and shrugged. "I guess you could say that. Anyway, Oliver got all excited, and McGonagall told him how I'd caught the remembrall. She said Charlie Weasley couldn't have done it. And that in itself is a great compliment."

"It is. Charlie is a brilliant Quidditch player," Ron said proudly.

Harry nodded. "And then she said she'd talk to Dumbledore and get him to bend the first year rule and get me a decent broomstick. And said I'd better practice hard or she'd think twice about punishing me."

"Your dad didn't even make it on the team as a first year," Sirius said. "He only got on second year."

"I know. I was the youngest player in a century," Harry said a bit smugly, feeling distinctly proud of himself again. His mood deflated a little bit when he thought about what he had to say next. "Of course, then that night at dinner Malfoy came over and asked me when I was going back to the muggles. And then challenged me to a Wizard's duel."

"A Wizard's duel? Really?" Remus asked, looking half worried and half amused.

"Yes. I had never heard of a Wizard's duel before, though Ron had."

Ron looked a little bit sheepish. "Well, come on. I was just trying to help you out so Malfoy didn't gloat about the fact that you didn't know."

"Did you have to do it in the way of saying you were my second, though? Then asking who Malfoy's second was?"

"Ronald!" Mrs. Weasley exclaimed. "Did you really accept a Wizard's duel? You were a first year, you shouldn't be fighting!"

"It wasn't even your fight to be fighting," Mr. Weasley added.

"And I suppose you had to sneak out of your dorms to do this illegal fighting then, didn't you?" Mrs. Weasley asked. "That's breaking so many school rules I don't even know where to begin."

"Mum," Ron groaned. "Harry's rule of no scolding or punishments is still in place, you know."

"I believe it was said that Harry couldn't be punished. Not you," Mrs. Weasley said dangerously.

"But.. shouldn't that automatically apply to me as well?" Ron asked.

"Not necessarily."

Ron gulped a little. "You don't even know what happened yet! Why don't you at least wait until you know what happened?"

"Do you really think that what happened is going to make this any better?" Hermione asked, raising an eyebrow.

"And what exactly did happen?" Mrs. Weasley asked.

"Er… Let's turn to Harry for that one," Ron said quickly, turning to look at him.

Harry just gave an amused smile.

"Well. We were supposed to meet Malfoy at midnight in the trophy room. So at half eleven we went down to the common room. Where we ran into that Hermione, who tried to stop us. She chased us all the way out into the hallway, lecturing us about how we'll lose so many points and how we don't care about Gryffindor at all."

"Ah, yes. Back when you were trying to stop the trouble from happening and weren't right in the thick of it," Fred said, looking over at Hermione. Hermione gave him an exasperated look.

"Anyway, we went to leave and told her to go back in the common room. But the Fat Lady had gone off somewhere. So, she was locked out. And she insisted on coming with us. And then we found Neville sleeping outside in the hall because he'd forgotten the password."

"How many more setbacks could you two come across?" George asked.

"Oh believe me. That isn't even the half of them," Ron stated.

"You two sucked at sneaking about first year," Fred laughed. "Though that's nothing compared to now, I'm sure."

Harry rolled his eyes. "I suppose. But anyway, we ended up bringing Neville with us. And we luckily made it to the trophy room undetected."

"Maybe you two didn't suck so much, after all, then," George said, slightly impressed.

"Well, you might think that. But after a while of waiting, we heard someone in the room over. And it wasn't Malfoy. It was Filch."

"Ooh. Rotten luck."

"You're telling me. We started going towards the other door, when Neville crashed into a suit of armor and knocked it, and Ron, over."

"Neville is not one for sneaking around, is he?" Sirius asked, chuckling.

"No he is not. So we all started sprinting, just trying to get out of there. And we ended up… somewhere that was miles away from the trophy room. I think it was the Charms corridor. But, we then ran into the one and only Peeves."

"I changed my mind. That's worse than rotten luck," Fred said.

"And of course, he started yelling. 'STUDENTS OUT OF BED!' Which attracted Filch again. So we ran off down the corridor, ending up at a door. That was locked."

"Of course it was," Remus said. Though he looked a bit thoughtful as he said it, like he might have worked out just what door it was already.

"But Hermione saved us. She Alohamora'd the door open and we ran in," Harry said. Remus groaned a little. The others all looked at him strangely, but he just shook his head. "We could hear Filch show up and ask Peeves which way we'd gone, but of course, Peeves being Peeves, he refused to say and just enraged Filch all the more."

"Rule number one, don't ever ask Peeves for help. You're not getting anything but trouble," Sirius said.

"Very true," Harry said. "But Neville started tugging on my sleeve, and he was still terrified. And when we turned around, we realized exactly why."

Remus sighed. "You were in the restricted third floor corridor, weren't you?" Those who hadn't worked it out yet finally understood, making anxious faces.

"Of course. With our luck, that's the only logical place we would end up," Hermione said.

"And what, may I ask, did you find there?" Sirius asked.

"Well, you know. Nothing too special. Just an absolutely gigantic dog that was nearly as tall as the ceiling with three heads and that was really quite vicious," Harry said, not looking at any of the others.

There was a moment of shocked silence. "You're joking," Sirius said after a second.

"Oh no, he's not," Hermione said. Harry looked up at his godfather. It seemed like hearing it from Hermione confirmed that he was telling the truth.

"Merlin's beard, Harry! Why on earth would they be keeping something like that in a school? Did it attack you?" Sirius asked quickly.

"No, we got out of there as fast as we could. We were perfectly fine, just terrified out of our wits. We sprinted all the way back to the common room, and the Fat Lady was back this time, so we all ran back inside and basically collapsed."

It looked like Mrs. Weasley still hadn't really come to terms with what had been said. She was just staring, a little bit pale. Finally, she kicked into action and stood up, running over to them all. "Oh, thank goodness you're alright! You could have been ripped to shreds!" she said, hugging all three of them.

"Mum, get off! This was four years ago!" Ron said quickly.

"Yes, but-" she said, before Mr. Weasley intervened.

"Molly, dear, come back and sit down. The kids are fine." After a little bit of protesting and another hug each, she finally consented.

"If she panicked that much over Fluffy, I can't imagine what she's gonna do when we actually get in the corridor," Ron muttered to Harry, who nodded.

"And that, ladies and gentleman, is first time Harry nearly got himself killed at Hogwarts," Fred said jokingly.

"Fred! Don't joke about a thing like that!" Mrs. Weasley said sternly.

"Mrs. Weasley, it's fine. It's all in the past. Might as well make jokes about it," Harry said. "Anyway, Hermione scolded us again, of course. But she also told us that the dog had been standing on a trap door."

"How do you manage to notice something like that when there's a giant, vicious, three headed dog staring you down?" Sirius asked amusedly.

Hermione shrugged. "I use my eyes and try to keep a calm head," she said.

"But anyway, that gave me something to think about," Harry said. "I ended up coming to the conclusion that Hagrid's little grubby package was probably what that dog was guarding."

"Of course. You're still thinking about that," Sirius said.

"Of course," Harry said. "But the next day at breakfast, Malfoy's face was brilliant. He'd set us up to get caught and expelled. And we were still there. And to add onto that, I got a new package in the mail that he was quite jealous of, as well…"

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	8. A Broomstick and a Newfound Friendship

**Chapter eight! Enjoy!**

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"Who did you get a package from?" Ginny asked curiously.

"Well, it was about a week after we'd had our encounter with Fluffy," Harry said thoughtfully, before Remus spoke up.

"Wait, Fluffy? That three headed dog's name is Fluffy?" he asked disbelievingly.

"Oh yeah. Fluffy," Ron said, snorting. Most everyone who hadn't previously known about Fluffy's name looked very confused. Though it seemed that Remus had connected something in his head and understood.

"Anyway, we were sitting at breakfast. Hermione wasn't talking to us, which we weren't horribly torn up about at that time. Though now, if she ever did, we'd be lost," Harry said, looking over at Hermione, who had been looking slightly irritated at the fact that they hadn't been talking. But she looked pleased when Harry added they would be lost now. And she looked even prouder of herself when Ron agreed.

"So we were at breakfast. And when the mail started coming in, there was this big package that several owls had to carry. Long and thin. I was very surprised when it dropped down right in front of me. I opened the card, which was lucky, because it said not to open the package at the table. Because it was… my new broomstick."

"You got a broomstick in the mail? Who sent that to you? What model was it? Was that the broom you used through your third year?" Sirius asked over-excitedly.

"Well, it was a Nimbus Two Thousand, which was top of the line at the time. Yes, it was my broom through third year. And it was sent by Professor McGonagall," Harry answered.

"McGonagall? What's she doing sending you a broom?" Sirius said.

"Well, she's the one who put me on the team. And I didn't have a broomstick of my own. I needed one, because there was no way I could use a school broom. She had to step in to bend the rules. So, she got it for me."

"But where did the money come from? It had to cost a good amount," Remus pointed out.

"I… never thought of that," Harry said slowly. "I guess I was too excited over it. And about what happened with Malfoy right after that.

"I would assume that she ordered it in your name and had the money taken from your vault," Hermione shrugged. "Isn't that like what you did with the Firebolt, Sirius?"

"Sort of. I ordered it under Harry's name and had the money taken from my vault," he said.

"Well then, she could have done that. Or I suppose she could have used school money," Hermione stated.

It was quiet for a moment while everyone debated the possibilities of what had happened, before Fred asked, "Wait, so what happened with Malfoy?"

Harry laughed. "Well, as Ron and I were taking the package upstairs, he stopped us and pulled it from me. And he felt it and realized what it was. Of course, he was thinking I'd snuck it in illegally or something and that I'd get in trouble this time. So when Professor Flitwick showed up…"

"Let me guess. The little rat squealed on you, thinking that Flitwick would take it from you and punish you for it?" George said.

"Of course. But Flitwick just said 'Yes, I heard about the special circumstances.' And he asked what model it was," Harry said, grinning.

"I bet Malfoy didn't like that," Sirius said, looking highly amused.

"Oh he didn't. He looked horrified. And he looked completely flabbergasted when I mentioned that it was thanks to him I got it," Harry laughed.

"I suppose that is true. If he hadn't taken the remembrall, you wouldn't have chased him and Professor McGonagall wouldn't have seen you make that catch," Remus said.

"Exactly," Harry agreed. "But as I mentioned it to Ron, that Hermione came up to us again, saying something along the lines of 'Don't go thinking that's a reward for breaking rules' or something."

Hermione sighed. "When do I get to stop sounding like such a little swot?" she mumbled. Ron snorted.

"Anyway, that night I had a lesson with Oliver so I could learn the rules of Quidditch and everything. So I finally got to unwrap the broom, which I'd been itching to do all day. And I hopped on it as soon as I got down there."

"I'll bet you had fun with that," Sirius said.

"Oh, I did. I raced up and down the field and around the goalposts, testing out the broom and flying and everything. And of course, Oliver got himself all excited over my flying. He taught me what I needed to know and I started Quidditch practice with the team."

"And after that, I don't think anything really exciting happened until… What, Halloween?" Ron said. Hermione went a little red.

"Ah, yes. Halloween. I guess that whole thing started with Charms, didn't it?" After a nod from Ron and another sheepish look from Hermione, he kept talking. "So, Flitwick told us that we finally got the opportunity to try out Wingardium Leviosa, which we were all eager to do. And he put us into pairs. I was with Seamus, and Ron was with Hermione."

"Oh, I can already see this going downhill," Fred said seriously.

"Of course it did. It basically ended up that Ron got fed up and said some rude things and Hermione got upset and skipped the rest of the classes that day," Harry said, giving an abridged version to try and spare his friends feelings. He knew Ron wouldn't be proud of calling her a nightmare and Hermione wouldn't be proud of crying over it.

"Ronald!" Mrs. Weasley scolded. "How dare you be rude to her!"

"Mum, please. This worked itself out long ago. I've already apologized," Ron groaned.

"Really, Mrs. Weasley. It's alright," Hermione chimed in, pacifyingly.

She still looked a bit skeptical, but Harry kept talking anyways. He was finding that to be an excellent way to skip over undesirable topics. "So it was after classes that day, and Ron and I were on our way down to the Great Hall for the Halloween feast. And we heard that Hermione was barricading herself in the girls' bathroom and wanted to be left alone."

Ginny made a sympathetic noise, and Hermione smiled over at her.

"We felt bad, of course. But when we saw the decorations in the Great Hall, the bad feelings were shoved to the backs of our minds," Harry said.

"Ah, yes. The first time you see the decorations for each of the feasts is always astonishing," Mr. Weasley agreed, nodding from his seat next to his wife, who still looked distinctly ruffled.

"We weren't there for very long, when suddenly Professor Quirrell came sprinting into the hall, screaming," Harry said.

"Why was he screaming?" Mrs. Weasley asked worriedly.

"Well, he was shouting about-" Harry started to say, but he was stopped by the Twins, who stood up.

"We've got this one, Harry." They shared identical mischievous grins before they began running around the room, shouting, "Troll! Troll in the dungeon! Troll in the dungeon!"

They both stopped at the same time, saying "Just thought you ought to know." Before they slumped to the ground in a very accurate impression of Quirrell from that night.

Most everyone who had been there was wearing an amused smile, but those who hadn't looked quite worried. "A troll? There was a troll in the castle?" Sirius asked.

"Yeah. Dumbledore managed to get everyone's attention. He had the Prefects escort all of the students back to their dorms to try and keep anyone safe. And he sent the teachers down to the dungeon to take care of the troll," Harry said.

"But how on earth did a troll get in the castle? They certainly aren't intelligent enough," Remus said seriously.

Harry just shrugged in response, not wanting to get into that yet. "But anyway, we were following the prefect up to the dorm, when I suddenly remembered. Hermione. She didn't know about the troll. She hadn't been in the Great Hall."

"So of course you went to tell the prefect, didn't you? Like a good, safe student?" Mrs. Weasley asked hopefully.

"Harry and Ron? Go to a prefect?" George asked.

"Safe?" Fred asked, before both of them started laughing. Mrs. Weasley groaned, though Harry and Ron were both highly amused.

"So we went to go tell her. And to get her up to the common room, where it was safe. On the way, we saw Snape running down the corridor towards the third floor," Harry started.

"Wait, shouldn't he be in the dungeon with the other teachers?" Ginny asked. Most of the others were looking curious about that, but Remus seemed a little suspicious, like he'd put together a few more details.

"We were wondering that too, but we sort of got distracted when the troll showed up," Ron said dismissively.

"The troll showed up?!" Sirius asked loudly. "The troll showed up in the corridor where you were?"

"Yes, that is correct," Harry said. "We watched it from a hiding spot behind a statue. It walked into a room a little ways down from where we were."

"You… you saw the troll?" Mrs. Weasley stuttered incomprehensibly.

"We did a lot worse than see it, believe me," Ron said. Her eyes bugged out a little bit farther, and Harry saw it fit to keep talking and get the whole story over with before she had a panic attack.

"We saw that the key was in the lock on the door to the room that the troll went in, so we went up and slammed the door shut and locked it," Harry explained. "We were thrilled with ourselves. Until… we heard a terrified scream come from the room we'd just locked."

Remus groaned. "Please tell me you didn't just lock the troll in the bathroom with Hermione."

"I'd love to, but then I'd be lying," Harry said seriously. Most everyone was looking completely horrified. "We ran back and opened that room up again, running inside. And there was Hermione. The troll was smashing everything, making its way over to her."

"How on earth did you get out of that one?" Sirius asked worriedly.

"Well, we tried to confuse it," Harry said. "We made a lot of noise and threw things at it. It didn't like that at all. It started going mad, and it moving to attack Ron. So, naturally I ran up and jumped on it."

There was a sort of stunned silence around the room for a few seconds, before Ginny broke it by saying, "You jumped on it. You jumped on the troll."

"Yes. I jumped on its back and grabbed on around its neck," Harry said calmly. Mrs. Weasley had her hand over her heart now, looking utterly freaked out.

"Harry," Sirius said tersely after a second. "That was very, very stupid. And yet very brave at the same time."

"I know. But a troll was going after my best mate! I had to do something!" Harry said defensively. "And it definitely stopped going after Ron. I think it was more worried about the fact that my wand was shoved up its nose."

"Eww," most everyone said reflexively.

"Yeah, that was pretty nasty. But it started going insane again. It was stomping around and swinging it's club and I was just holding on for dear life at that point."

"You were hanging on the back on a rampaging troll," Remus said amazedly, and Harry laughed.

"Yes, I was. But Ron fixed that. He managed to levitate the trolls club, and then knock it out. With its own club," Harry said smugly, smiling over at Ron.

"You knocked a troll out with its own club," Sirius said slowly, sounding amused. "Well done. That's perfect."

"Thank you," Ron said happily. Mrs. Weasley was looking half horrified and half proud now.

"And then, the teachers showed up," Harry said simply.

"Ah. Not so perfect, then," Sirius said.

"Well, McGonagall was looking angrier than I'd ever seen her. She told us to explain ourselves, and Ron and I were both lost for words. But then, Hermione spoke up. And she told her that she'd gone looking for the troll and we'd come and rescued her."

"Wait, wait. Hold on. Hermione lied to a teacher?" George asked.

"Unheard of. Impossible," Fred said immediately. Hermione shot them a look.

"But anyways, that got us off the hook. McGonagall took five points from Hermione. But she gave Ron and I each five," Harry said.

"Well, at least you came out in the positive!" Sirius said cheerfully.

"True," Harry agreed. "I think that must be one of the most interesting stories of how a friendship was made, honestly. Knocking out a troll."

"So you all became friends with each other over that?" Remus asked. At the affirmative nods he got back, he said, "Well, what an interesting bonding experience."

"A troll," Mrs. Weasley said faintly, finally speaking up. "You all became friends over a troll."

"And I wouldn't change it for anything, mum," Ron said quickly. "We beat the troll. We didn't get hurt. It's okay. No need to get upset over it."

Harry could tell that Ron was getting tired of giving his mother that argument. He snorted as he thought of everything else they had yet to say that could possibly terrify anyone else. The Quidditch game, the corridor, everything that happened the second year and beyond…

He sighed again, realizing just how much of the story they had yet to go…

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	9. The First Game

**Alright! Chapter nine! **

**Enjoy!**

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"Then the next important thing that happened was the Quidditch game, right?" Ron asked excitedly.

"Yes. But we did notice that Snape was limping the day before that, didn't we?" Hermione said.

"Oh right," Ron said, sounding slightly irritated that Snape had to come before Quidditch. The Twins had similar disgusted expressions plastered on their faces, which made a few others chuckle.

"Right. We were just out in the courtyard during break, and Snape showed up. He was very obviously limping. And I'm sure he was just looking for an excuse to tell us off, because he claimed that 'library books are not to be taken out of the school' and took the one I had with me away," Harry said, irritated.

"You're right, that isn't a school rule. Library books are allowed outside. Though I'm sure Madam Pince wouldn't mind that rule very much," Remus mused.

"Really! Those books are her entire life!" Fred said. "She enchanted one that hit me 'round the head once!"

"She's obsessed, the old bat," George said, earning a disapproving look from his mother.

"Anyway, that was the day before the first Quidditch game, and I wanted the book back to take my mind off of everything. So I decided I'd go find Snape and ask for the book back," Harry said.

"Probably wasn't a smart move, mate," Fred said. A few of the others in the room nodded in agreement.

"It really wasn't. Especially because when I went down to the staffroom I opened the door and I saw… Filch helping Snape bandage up his mangled and bloody leg. And Snape was saying 'how are you supposed to watch all three heads at once'," Harry said slowly.

There was a moment of silence as everyone realized what Harry had just said. And what it meant. "Snape was attacked by that three headed dog? Fluffy?" Sirius asked, sounding slightly angry. "What was he doing there? Isn't that dog guarding something?"

"Yes, and Snape was obviously trying to get to whatever the dog was guarding," Harry said, careful to not give anything away or falsely incriminate Snape. "We figured he did it on Halloween and that he let the troll in as a diversion."

"Why is he going after something that Dumbledore is trying to protect?" Sirius asked. "What is he after?"

"That was the only thing I thought about that night. It kept me up for a while when I went to bed," Harry said.

"But didn't you say it was the night before your first Quidditch match?" Remus asked. Harry nodded.

"But you needed your sleep! Especially then!" Mrs. Weasley said worriedly.

"It's alright, Mrs. Weasley. I was fine that day," Harry said, before adding, "Well… Besides the obvious nerves. And… other things."

"Other things?" Mrs. Weasley said loudly, still quite worried.

"Come on, mum. You couldn't expect Harry's first Quidditch game to go by completely uneventfully," George said. Harry snorted.

"I'm just lucky I've got such good friends," Harry said, looking over at Hermione, who smiled back.

"We really are," Ron said, and Hermione beamed at him as well.

"You all painted a big banner for me. That somehow managed to calm me down a little bit as we were all getting ready to take off as well," Harry said happily.

"Glad we could help, mate," Ron said, patting him on the shoulder.

"And it was just the average Gryffindor versus Slytherin game at first. Of course, there were fouls and some other sketchy moves, but that's normal," Harry said.

"You're telling me. You should have seen some of the tricks your father played," Sirius chuckled.

"The percentage of those he got away with was actually surprisingly high. He had a way of talking the referee out of awarding penalties," Remus said amusedly. "It completely infuriated the other teams."

Harry smiled. "Well, Oliver had me stay out of the way for the most part. It was part of our plan. Keep out of the way until you see the Snitch. And I did, for the most part. But when I saw the Snitch, I dived at it, and I started racing the Slytherin seeker to it. We were neck and neck, until…"

"Bam," Ron said.

Sirius looked quite eager to know what happened and what 'bam' meant, making Harry chuckle. "Marcus Flint, the Slytherin captain, blocked me and sent me spinning off course."

"Oh, that had to be a foul!" Sirius nearly shouted.

"It was, Alicia took the shot and sunk it in no problem," Fred said. "But remember Lee's comments? And how angry McGonagall got over them?"

George laughed. "Didn't he finally end on 'Flint almost killed the Gryffindor seeker, which could have happened to anyone, I'm sure'?"

"Brilliant," they said together as a few others chuckled.

"But of course, with all of that commotion, the snitch got away," Harry said.

"Damn," Ginny muttered.

"Ginny! Language!" Mrs. Weasley immediately scolded, glaring over at her.

"Sorry mum," she said immediately, not sounding quite as sorry as she could have. The Twins looked like they both were somewhat proud of her.

"So I went back to keeping out of the way and patrolling around, looking for the Snitch. When suddenly, my broom lurched and I nearly fell off. And it happened again. And again. It was almost like my broom was trying to buck me off. And I realized shortly after that I had completely lost control of it. It just jerked and twitched and zigzagged around and I held on for dear life," Harry said.

"What?" Sirius practically shouted again. "How did that happen? What caused that?"

"I had no idea at the time. I was just trying to hang on, really," Harry said.

"If you would have fallen off you could have been seriously hurt!" Mrs. Weasley said, her voice sounding oddly restricted.

"Believe me, I know," Harry said seriously. "But I managed to hang on. And if I had fallen one of those two would have caught me anyways." He nodded over towards the Twins. Their mother looked over at them disbelievingly for a few seconds.

"Of course we would have, mum. We tried to get him off his broom, but it kept jerking away. So we circled under him in case he did fall," George said.

"Oh, I'm so proud of both of you," she said, almost slightly teary. They just rolled their eyes at her.

"So what happened? How did you get out of that?" Sirius asked.

"Actually, I have to thank Hermione. She was the one who took care of it," Harry said. Everyone looked over to her.

She took the initiative and started explaining what had happened. "Well, Hagrid was the one who pointed out that Harry's broom was acting strange. We watched it start rolling over and over and give a few wild swings, and Harry almost fell off. Only hanging on with one hand."

Mrs. Weasley was back to looking at Harry like he was in danger of death at that very moment.

"Hagrid said something that made me think, though. He said that nothing could interfere with a broom except powerful dark magic. Something a student couldn't do. So… I looked over at the staff. And sure enough, I saw… Snape. He was staring at Harry and muttering under his breath," Hermione said quietly, anticipating an outburst from Sirius. And she wasn't disappointed.

"What?" Sirius growled dangerously. "Snivellus was jinxing Harry's broomstick?" Most everyone else, at least those who didn't know the true story, looked completely flabbergasted. Sirius angrily stood up and strode towards the door.

"Sirius! Where are you going?" Remus asked sharply. "Come sit back down. Don't do anything rash that you're going to regret."

Sirius paused for a few moments, looking like he wanted to say something, before he turned around and stalked back over towards his chair. He threw a calculating look over at Harry, like he was double checking that Snape hadn't done any harm to his godson, before throwing himself back down in his seat. "Snape almost threw you off a broomstick," he said bitterly.

"Sirius. I'm fine. And would you please listen to the rest of the story? I'm sure you'll be a lot happier when you hear what happens." Harry said, giving his godfather a look. He was silent, which Harry took as a good thing. Though Harry could still almost feel anger radiating from him. "Hermione? Keep going?"

She looked a bit timid, but she kept talking. "I had to do something. So I ran over to where Snape was sitting in the stands. I think I must have ran into quite a few people in my rush to get over there, including Professor Quirrell. I knocked him straight over." Her eyes flicked over to Harry and Ron for a brief second. Though Sirius was still looking quite bitter, so she quickly kept talking. "And I… set his robes on fire."

There was a moment of shocked silence that ran through the room. "You…you did what?" Fred finally managed to splutter out.

"It was only bluebell flames! I mean, as soon as he noticed that he was on fire I scooped it into a jar and ran back the other way!" she explained anxiously. "I just needed to distract him!"

The Twins were both staring at her as though she'd just sprouted a pair of antlers. She was blushing slightly, but smiling nonetheless. Ginny was laughing uproariously, and Remus even had an amused smile on his face.

"That was quite clever, Hermione," he said. "No one got hurt and it most likely created a fair amount of chaos and confusion."

"Thank you," she replied, sounding pleased with herself.

"But you. Hermione Granger. You still set Snape on fire," George said.

"You are far more amazing than we gave you credit for," Fred added. They both bowed at her from their seats, and she just smiled and rolled her eyes.

"And you were able to get back on your broom? It stopped trying to buck you off?" Sirius asked solemnly.

"Oh, yeah!" Harry said immediately. "My broom was fine then."

"Thank goodness," Sirius said, sitting back in his chair and angrily muttering something about how he wished Hermione had set fire to Snape's head instead.

"But then," Ron said, smirking, "Harry suddenly sped off towards the ground. And he looked like he was gonna be sick. But he didn't. He ended up coughing up the Snitch instead."

"You caught it in your mouth?" Remus asked disbelievingly. When Harry nodded, he let out a laugh. "So you won, then?"

"Yeah. It wasn't against the rules or anything. And technically I caught it. So we won," Harry said happily.

"What a game. If only James could have seen you play it," Sirius said, still sounding vaguely disgruntled about the whole Snape situation, but now sounding proud as well.

"You should have seen how upset Flint got over that," Fred said amusedly.

"Yeah, he kept shouting about how you swallowed it, you didn't catch it!" George added, chuckling.

"I was perfectly fine with not hearing it. I was happy just getting out of there. I was glad to take a seat on solid ground back at Hagrid's cabin," Harry said.

Mrs. Weasley, who had been oddly quiet for the past few minutes, chimed in again, saying, "Well, no one would blame you! You weren't hurt, getting out of there as fast as you could was smart!"

"It probably was. You won the game and you were relatively unharmed. So leave while you're ahead," Mr. Weasley spoke up, smiling pleasantly.

"Yeah, that and… we did manage to get a bit of information out of Hagrid," Harry said.

"Like what?" Ginny asked immediately.

"Well, first of all, he didn't believe that Snape tried to kill me. He was very adamant about that," Harry said. "And when we told him that Snape had tried to get past Fluffy on Halloween, that was when we learned its name is Fluffy. And that Fluffy belonged to Hagrid, who had loaned him to Dumbledore to guard something."

"Ah, I thought so!" Remus exclaimed. "There is no way that something that ferocious with such a lovely name could belong to anyone else."

Harry chuckled. "And he told us to forget the dog and what it was guarding, because that was strictly between Dumbledore and Nicholas Flamel."

"Hagrid never was good at keeping information to himself," Sirius said amusedly. "But now I suppose that you three tried to figure out who Nicholas Flamel was?"

"Of course we did. We spent every free moment we had in the library, reading books and trying to find his name somewhere…"

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	10. The Mirror of Erised

**Alright, chapter ten! I hope you guys like it!**

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"You were in the library every moment you could?" Remus asked, halfway amused and halfway unsurprised.

"Of course," Harry said. "Though, those moments were never very substantial. They were really only a few spare moments between classes."

"And adding onto the fact that we really had no idea where to look in the first place, that made it especially difficult," Ron said.

"But once again, you prove that you have your mothers stubbornness," Sirius said. "She was always curious like you are. Once she found out about something, she wouldn't rest until she knew everything she could."

Harry smiled a little. This, telling his story, it actually proved to be an alright experience, aside from Sirius and Mrs. Weasley nearly having multiple panic attacks. Learning more about his parents… he certainly didn't mind that.

"Remember how horrified Hagrid was when he told him we were looking, though?" Ron asked after a few seconds. "He was so angry with himself for letting it slip!"

"And of course, he told us to drop it and that it was none of our business, which we promptly ignored," Harry said, chuckling.

"And that would be the part of your father coming out in you again," Sirius said. Harry couldn't help but feel almost a little bit proud, even though Mrs. Weasley was looking highly disapproving about the whole thing.

"So, did you find it?" Ginny asked eagerly.

"Well, we expected we'd find something once the holidays started, because we'd have a lot more time to search," Harry said.

"Though Hermione went home that Christmas, so we lost her valuable studying skills," Ron said. Hermione smiled.

"And you lost me keeping both of you on track, didn't you?" she said knowingly. Harry and Ron exchanged sheepish glances.

"Well, I started teaching Harry Wizard's Chess during the break too!" Ron said defensively.

"Oh, well that's important then," Hermione said impatiently. "More important than figuring out what Fluffy was guarding and why anyone would try to steal it."

"We also liked to discuss ways of getting Malfoy expelled, too. That was a valuable way to spend our time," Harry said quickly. Both the Twins and Sirius laughed.

"And how could you expect us to look on Christmas Eve?" Ron said. We were much too excited about Christmas morning and presents then!"

"You were, at least," Harry muttered. A few odd looks came his way, and he said, "Well, you see, when you've never gotten any real Christmas gifts for ten years of your life, you don't really expect to have some the eleventh time."

"That's right. You were surprised weren't you? I'd forgotten until now…" Ron said slowly.

"They never gave you any Christmas gifts?" Sirius asked, astonished and angry.

"Well, they did. They just weren't ever anything… that great. That year I think they sent a fifty pence piece."

"Just a fifty pence piece?" Hermione asked, irritated.

"Well, I did get other presents! And they were all much, much better! Hagrid whittled that flute for me, remember?"

"The one we used… Right, right," Hermione said, stopping before she gave anything away.

"And I got the traditional Weasley sweater as well as some homemade fudge," he said, looking over to the woman who made them. "Thank you again for that, Mrs. Weasley."

"It was no problem, dear," she said kindly, looking a bit sad.

"And then Hermione, you gave me that box of chocolate frogs. But the last one… I didn't know who it was from. A gleaming, shining, silvery cloak," Harry said happily.

"The cloak?" Sirius asked at once. "You mean your father's invisibility cloak? Is that how you got ahold of that?"

"I had wondered how you ended up with it," Remus said thoughtfully. "But who would have given it to you?"

"At the time, I had no idea. There was just a note that said 'Your father left this in my possession before he died, it's time it was returned to you. Use it well."

"Left this is my possession…" Remus repeated slowly, looking deep in thought. "But James wouldn't have trusted just anyone with it. He was very attached to that cloak."

"When did you use it first?" Sirius asked excitedly, breaking the sort of tense mood that was settling and making Remus roll his eyes.

"That night, actually," Harry said. The sudden memories of where he ended up that night and what he saw came flooding back to him then. The mirror… his parents…

Right on cue, his scar started to prickle again, the little pains shooting across his forehead. Remus was watching him carefully, apparently noticing that he'd stiffened up. Though most of the others were much too excited to hear about the cloak to notice his minor reactions.

"And where did you go on your first trip out?" Sirius asked, definitely far too eager to have noticed any unusual behavior on Harry's part.

"I went to the library so I could try to look for Nicholas Flamel some more," Harry answered, and even though he was worried about what was coming up, he couldn't help but laugh a little at the faces of both his godfather and the Twins.

"Your first trip out with an invisibility cloak… You could basically do anything you want… And you visited the library?!" Sirius asked wildly.

"Well, not just any part of the library," Harry said defensively. "I did go to the restricted section, thank you very much."

"I suppose that's a little bit better. But still. The library," Sirius said, grinning and shaking his head.

"Well, I can tell you, I had a very… adventurous night," Harry said. This time Sirius seemed to notice that he was a little tense.

"What happened?" he asked cautiously.

"Well, I made it to the restricted section alright. But the first book I opened… Madam Pince had cursed it. It started screaming. Loudly. Which of course, attracted Filch…" Harry said, trailing off.

"Ahh, tough luck, mate," George said.

"And then, as I was running away, suddenly Filch showed up again. And this time he had company," Harry said, sounding slightly irritated.

"Who could be worse than Filch, though?" Ginny asked.

Several voices around the room simultaneously said, "Snape."

"Yes. Snape," Harry confirmed. "I had somehow ended up in this really skinny corridor, and I was right in their way, they were bound to bump into me."

"Don't tell me you got caught using the cloak for the first time?" Sirius groaned.

"Oh, no, I didn't. I managed to sneak out into a side room along the corridor. And in that side room… was a large mirror."

Ron shifted slightly next to him, and Harry took a deep breath. It wasn't going to be too horribly hard for him to tell them all what he'd seen, but he knew that he'd be getting sad looks and 'oh, Harry's, and that was what was going to make it uncomfortable.

"Well, I figured I ought to stay in that room for a while, just to make sure Filch and Snape were gone. And anyway, I wanted to look in the mirror wearing the cloak and not see myself again. But when I looked in the mirror… there was a lot more than nothing there."

"What do you mean by that?" Sirius asked curiously.

"Well, I saw myself," Harry said, ignoring all of the confused comments about how he was invisible. "And… my reflection wasn't alone either."

"There was someone in the room with you?" Ginny asked worriedly.

"Oh, no, I was alone. But my reflection wasn't."

"How is that possible?" Mr. Weasley said, speaking up from across the room, where he had been trying to control his wife.

"I had no clue. All I knew was that when I looked in the mirror… I saw my parents standing next to me."

"Harry… how? They're dead. How could they show up in a mirror at Hogwarts?" Sirius asked slowly.

Harry rubbed at his prickling forehead for a second, before saying, "Believe me, at the time I was just as confused as you are. Not to mention freaked out. That was the first time I'd ever seen my parents. I didn't have any pictures or anything, so…"

He shrugged. And looking around at everyone, he saw that he had been right. Most everyone was looking sad or sympathetic. Mrs. Weasley looked like she would be up and hugging him as tightly as she could, if Mr. Weasley wasn't holding onto her hand so tightly. Harry sat back and watched everyone, until after almost a full minute of silence Sirius asked, "What did you do?"

"I stood there staring in that mirror for a long time. But I finally managed to tear myself away and get back to bed in the end."

"Why do I feel like that won't be the end of that mirror?" Remus asked, massaging his temple.

Harry let out a sort of bitter laugh. "Because it wasn't. I went back the next night."

"Of course you did. It's only natural to want to see them again!" Mrs. Weasley said sadly.

"I did bring Ron with me, this time, though. I figured if I could see my family in the mirror, maybe he could see his. He could see my parents; I could see the brothers he'd talked about that I hadn't met. But that's not how the mirror worked. When I stood right in front of it and looked into it, I could see my family there. But he could only see me. And when he stood in front of it, he didn't see his family. He saw something different, but I only saw him," Harry explained.

"What did you see in the mirror then?" Fred asked, looking over to Ron.

"I was head boy, Quidditch captain, and I had both the house and the Quidditch cup in my hands," Ron said quickly, avoiding his brothers' eyes.

"What does that…?" George asked, obviously very confused.

Everyone was looking mostly the same. Confused and still a little upset. At least, until Remus suddenly said "Oh!"

"Understood what the mirror does?" Harry asked him, and he nodded slowly.

"That's both wonderful and terrible at the same time," he said, looking sorrowful.

"What? Would you care to explain to us what's going on in your head, Remus?" Sirius asked.

"You'll find out in just a minute, Sirius," Harry said. "Because that night we were interrupted by Mrs. Norris, and we had to leave early. But I went back a third night."

"Even though I'd told him not to," Ron said. Harry shot a look at him and he said, "What? You were acting weird, that mirror was all you were thinking about. And you could have gotten caught; you'd had so many close shaves already!"

"Well, I guess I technically did get caught," Harry said thoughtfully.

"By who?" Sirius asked skeptically.

"Dumbledore. I was so eager to get to the mirror again that I must have walked right past him. But as soon as I sat down there, he said 'Back again, Harry?' And he was sitting on a desk against the opposite wall. Nearly terrified me."

"Only that man," Mrs. Weasley muttered.

"He explained to me that the mirror was called the Mirror of Erised. And he said asked me if I knew what it did. I mentioned that it showed me my parents, and he brought up that it showed Ron as Head Boy."

"Hold on, how did he know that?" Ron asked curiously.

"He just said that he didn't need a cloak to be invisible," Harry said, rubbing his forehead again.

"So he was there? When I came with you?" Ron asked loudly. "Bloody hell…"

"Anyway," Harry said, before Mrs. Weasley could reprimand him, "He told me that the happiest man on earth would look into the mirror and see himself exactly as he was."

"It shows you what you want," Remus spoke up. "Something you wish for."

"That's what I said. And he told me that it showed you the most desperate desire of your heart, or something like that. I'd never met my family, so I saw myself with them," Harry stated.

Mrs. Weasley sniffed a little bit.

"Anyway, he also said that he was moving it to a new home and that I shouldn't go looking for it again," Harry said.

"Which is probably a good thing," Remus said. "Just think, you could stare at that mirror for hours and hours. Seeing what you want the most but unable to get it."

"He said something along those lines too. Men wasted away in front of it or something like that," Harry said. The pain was building in his scar again, making it hard to concentrate.

"So did you get in trouble at all?" Sirius asked.

"Oh, no. He just told me to put my wonderful cloak back on and get back to bed," Harry said.

"Fantastic. Only you could wriggle out of that," Sirius chuckled.

"Sure," Harry answered dismissively. He rubbed his scar again, gritting his teeth.

"Does your scar hurt again, Harry?" Hermione asked quietly.

"Yeah. I'll be back in a minute," he said, getting up and hurriedly walking out of the room, leaving most of the people sitting in it glancing after him worriedly.

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**So, what did you think? =D**


	11. Nicholas Flamel

**Enjoy!**

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"His scar. It was hurting again. That was quite obvious," Hermione said five minutes later. Harry still wasn't back yet, and most everyone was starting to worry a bit. Once again.

"The poor dear," Mrs. Weasley muttered, staring at the door and looking like she was trying to urge it to open up and show that Harry was on the other side.

"That's not even the first time his scar has done that today," Sirius said, tapping his hand on the arm of his chair impatiently, also staring at the door. "When I went upstairs to get him to come down again, his scar was hurting so badly he didn't even hear me knock."

Mrs. Weasley now looked like she was about to get up and run through the entire house to find Harry and force feed him some homemade soup or something. The Twins even shifted uncomfortably at Sirius' words.

"I think I'd better go after him again," Sirius said, halfway to getting up, before another voice spoke up.

"Wait. Could… Do you think I could go?" Ron said. Sirius stopped and looked at him a few seconds, before he sat back down.

"Alright, Ron. Go right ahead," Sirius said, nodding. "He'd probably get irritated at me popping up to check on him every time, anyway. Talking to you might be good for him."

Ron just nodded once, before getting up and crossing the room, stepping out into the hall. He was very aware that everyone was watching him strangely. None of them really thought he would be the one volunteering to do this. But Harry was his best mate. Of course he would.

He walked down to the end of the hall and stopped for a moment, wondering where Harry had gotten off to. He decided to try the bedroom they were sharing, figuring that to be the place he'd go to get away from everyone for a few minutes. With one last calculating look down towards the dining room, he started moving upstairs.

As soon as he reached the door to the room, only open a slight crack, he heard a stifled groan and knew he was in the right place. "Harry?" he said quietly, knocking once and pushing the door open.

Harry was sitting on the edge of the bed he occupied, holding a cup of water and still rubbing at his forehead. He mumbled a greeting back.

"So," Ron said, walking in and sitting down on his bed across from Harry. "You-Know-Who having a rough night, then?"

"That's an understatement," Harry said, taking drink from the cup. "Did you get sent to check on me?"

"I figured you would rather it be me than Sirius," Ron said.

"True. He'd probably try to talk about my parents or how I'm brave to say all this or something. I dunno, I guess… I just don't need that right now," Harry said. "I'm extremely fond of everyone in that room but… All of the sad and upset looks I'm getting are really starting to get a bit irritating. And my scar hurting just set me on edge, I think. "

"I suppose, yeah," Ron said slowly. He noticed that Harry seemed to be much more comfortable than just a few seconds ago when he had walked in, and asked, "So, your scar is feeling a bit better now, then?"

"Voldemort has settled down again for the moment, yeah," Harry answered, Ron violently flinching as he said the name.

"Excellent. Do you wanna get back to the others, then? The sooner we get back to it, the sooner we can get it over with."

"I suppose. Thanks mate," Harry said, standing up and downing the rest of the water. They started making their way out of the room before Harry stopped suddenly and said, "You know, I'm really not looking forward to getting to the part of our story where we go to the corridor."

"Neither am I, to be honest," Ron agreed. "My mum is probably going to explode."

"And Sirius is going to have a heart attack."

After a moment they looked at each other, sharing small grins, before continuing on their way back. Harry's mood definitely took a great lift. It didn't feel like someone was trying to force a knife through his forehead anymore, which helped considerably. And talking with Ron somehow made the whole thing seem much less horrible.

"So, where were we?" Harry said, grinning as he stepped back into the drawing room again and ignoring the looks he received. He noticed a few people look back at Ron, who was right behind him, with half amazed looks. He just rolled his eyes as he plopped back down next to Hermione, who was in the middle of the couch they'd been sitting on.

"I believe we were just getting back to classes from Christmas holidays," Ron said as he sat down as well.

"Ah, yes. That's right. Still hadn't found Nicholas Flamel. Back to class, and back to Quidditch practice, where we learned that Madam Hooch wasn't going to referee the next game," Harry said, looking around for a moment before saying, "Snape was."

"Snape?" Sirius repeated immediately, looking quite upset.

"Oh, that's right. I fell clean off my broom when I found out," George said, looking thoughtful.

"What did he want to referee for? Wasn't he the one jinxing your broomstick last time?" Sirius asked, practically ignoring George's comment.

"That's what worried me so much. I had much more of a reason to be wary of him refereeing than 'he'll be unfair to Gryffindor'. When I told these two," Harry said, pointing to Ron and Hermione next to him, "They told me not to play. And I had just told them that I couldn't back out, because we didn't have a reserve seeker, when Neville fell into the common room."

"He fell in? He didn't just walk in?" Ginny asked.

"Nope. He fell. He'd met Malfoy by the library, and Malfoy put the leg locker curse on him," Harry said.

"He made it all the way up to Gryffindor tower with his legs locked?" Sirius asked, sounding impressed and momentarily forgetting about the Quidditch issue. "He'd have had to hop all the way from the third floor!"

"And he did. Of course, I jumped up and un-locked his legs right away," Hermione said, giving Sirius a stern look for sounding so amused.

"I told him he was worth twelve of Malfoy, which is very true. And I gave him a chocolate frog to make him feel better," Harry said. He looked over to Ron and Hermione, both of whom seemed to remember what information they learned from the candy.

"And he asked you if you wanted the card, because you collect them," Ron said excitedly. A few of the others looked highly interested, because the three were looking so excited, meaning something interesting was bound to happen.

"And it was Dumbledore's card. The first one I'd ever gotten. I flipped it over, just scanning the back, when I saw two words that caught my eye," Harry said. "Nicholas Flamel."

"Nicholas Flamel!" Ginny exclaimed. "You found him! The guy Hagrid mentioned! What was he doing on the back of Dumbledore's chocolate frog card?"

"It mentioned that Flamel worked with Dumbledore on some sort of alchemy," Hermione spoke up quickly. She was speaking very fast again. "And that made me remember something I'd read in a book I had checked out of the library."

"Yeah, for 'light reading'," Ron muttered, sharing a grin with Harry. Hermione swatted him on the arm. "What? That book was huge!" he said defensively. She just rolled her eyes at him yet again.

"Anyway, after a minute I found it. Nicholas Flamel: The only known maker of the Philosopher's Stone!" Hermione said dramatically... again. This time Harry and Ron understood what she was talking about, but just as it had been before nobody else did. The exception was Remus, however, who was looking at her like she'd just told him his socks were on fire.

"The Philosopher's Stone…" he said slowly, and the three nodded gravely. "Then that would most likely be what Fluffy was protecting, wouldn't it? It explains why someone was willing to break into Gringotts to get their hands on it, too."

"Excuse me, but I think the rest of us are missing something here," Fred said, looking back and forth between Remus and the trio.

"The Philosopher's Stone is the stuff of legends," Remus said, turning to look toward the Twins. "It's incredibly rare. It has the power to turn any metal into pure gold, and is capable of creating the Elixir of Life."

"The Elixir of Life. That sounds like something that someone would do anything to get their hands on," George said slowly.

"It is," Hermione said quietly. "It makes the drinker immortal."

A hushed silence fell over the room. It wasn't the first time it had happened, but it was perhaps the quietest as they took in exactly what that meant.

A lot of the things that had happened that year seemed to leave everyone speechless. Harry could only imagine what was going to happen when they got past Fluffy and made it into the corridor, or when they heard about what happened during his second year, the basilisk… A few of them would probably lose their voices forever. He snorted, gaining a few odd looks.

"Sorry," he said, barely containing a smile. "So we knew what Fluffy was guarding. And we knew why Snape wanted to steal it now."

"Of course," Sirius said disgustedly. "Anyone would want that. Immortality. Money."

"But I didn't really have too much time to think about that, to be honest. I was more worried about facing Snape in that Quidditch match against Hufflepuff."

"Oh, right," Sirius said darkly. He looked like he was about ready to reach for his wand and hex the living daylights out of Snape by now.

"Leading up to that match, I kept feeling like I was running into Snape everywhere I went. Honestly, it was weird. He was just always there," Harry said.

"What was he doing, trying to intimidate you?" Sirius asked loudly.

"Honestly, it didn't have too much of an effect on me," Harry lied, flattening his hair. It had actually made him a bit more nervous to see Snape popping up everywhere. Sirius looked at him suspiciously, and Harry remembered what his godfather had said about his father messing with his hair when he was lying as well. "Though it didn't help that both of you two looked like you'd never see me again that morning," Harry said, quickly changing to another topic and looking to Ron and Hermione.

"We didn't want to see you hurt again!" Hermione said defensively. "We were both ready to curse Snape if he looked like he wanted to go after you!"

"Thankfully, there was no way he could have, seeing as Dumbledore showed up to the match," Harry said. He chuckled a little as most everyone in the room visibly relaxed.

"Perfect. He couldn't go after you if Dumbledore was there," Sirius said smugly, leaning back.

"Exactly. And the game wasn't altogether too interesting. Of course, he favoured Hufflepuff, but that was expected."

"And he kept awarding penalties for really dumb reasons," Fred said, shaking his head.

"Like when I hit a bludger at him," George said, grinning. They high fived while the others laughed. "Honestly, it was the perfect opportunity. I couldn't resist. I just wish it had hit him."

"George!" Mrs. Weasley said scoldingly. George shrugged.

"Anyway, I didn't even give Snape too much of a chance to favour the Hufflepuffs," Harry said proudly.

"That's right; you caught the snitch in five minutes!" Fred exclaimed.

"Five minutes?" Sirius said, before throwing his head back and laughing. "Brilliant!"

"The best part was how you nearly knocked Snape off his broom when you went into that dive," George said. "You barely missed him!"

Sirius laughed even harder, again shouting, "Brilliant!"

"But really, I think you had a more exciting time than I did," Harry said, turning to look at Ron. "You and Neville both."

"Well, it was nothing, really," Ron said, grinning.

"What did you do?" Fred asked eagerly.

"Well, Malfoy was just being so bloody annoying. I had to do something…" Ron said.

"You attacked him," Harry said, and Ron nodded, grinning. "And Neville tried to take on Crabbe and Goyle all by himself."

"I managed to give Malfoy a black eye," Ron said. Fred and George were both looking incredibly proud, Mrs. Weasley incredibly disapproving. "Though Neville was unconscious for several hours."

"And Snape was looking incredibly sour," Harry said happily.

"Well, then. That didn't turn out too bad, did it?" Sirius said, grinning.

"No, it really didn't. Though, I can honestly say that what I overheard Snape saying after the match was a lot less welcome than Malfoy getting punched in the face…"

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	12. An Overheard Conversation and a Hatching

**Here we are, chapter 12! I hope you like it!**

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"I don't think anything could ever be as welcome as Malfoy getting punched in the face, to be honest," Fred said.

"Ah, that's true," Ron agreed.

"Not even what Moody did to him last year?" Harry asked, raising his eyebrows.

"I stand corrected," Ron said, wearing a sort of expression that indicated that he was remembering Malfoy bouncing around as a ferret again.

Harry recalled that they'd mentioned it before, and now all the non-students were looking very intrigued by what they were hinting at. He almost laughed, but he remembered where the conversation had been going before Malfoy and Moody.

"Anyways," Harry said, looking around at everyone. "I was just putting my broom back in the broomshed after the game. I was quite happy, seeing as I'd just showed Snape up, and Dumbledore had complimented me on the game as well."

"What did Dumbledore say?" Ron asked. "We never saw you talking to him."

"Well, you were busy with a severe nosebleed, weren't you?" Harry responded, prompting Mrs. Weasley to look at Ron like his nose was about to start spouting blood any second. "He just said well done and told me he was glad I wasn't still thinking all about that mirror."

A few people nodded, thinking the same thing.

"So I was by the broomshed," Harry started again, "when I saw Snape walk out of the front doors of the castle. And proceed to run into the forest, very obviously not wanting to be seen."

"What's that about?" Sirius mused quietly.

"Well, I was set on finding out. So I jumped back on my broom and followed him."

"Of course you did," Remus mumbled, though there was a little smile on his face.

"I couldn't not follow him!" Harry said. "He was obviously up to something!"

"It is physically impossible for him, I think," George said. "He sees possible trouble and just has to go for it."

Harry rolled his eyes a little before continuing. "I had to circle over the trees a few times, but eventually I heard voices. So I landed in a big tree to listen. And I saw that he was talking to Quirrell."

"Quirrell? What's he doing there?" Sirius asked.

"Well, Quirrell said something about not knowing why Snape would want to meet in the forest of all places, and Snape said he wanted to keep the little chat 'private'. Because students weren't supposed to know about the Philosopher's Stone," Harry said ominously.

"What would Snape have to say to Quirrell about the stone?" Mr. Weasley asked.

"He asked him if he'd found out how to get past Fluffy yet," Harry said.

There were a few seconds of silence, during which a few people looked confused and slightly worried. "So Snape was definitely trying to get to the Stone," Ginny said softly.

Harry nodded. "Snape also threatened him and said something about a bit of 'hocus pocus' that Quirrell had done. Though I missed part of that because a particularly loud owl hooted right next to me and I nearly fell out of the tree."

"That would have been awkward," Fred said, joking a little bit despite the seriousness of the situation.

"He probably would have been cursed before he hit the ground, though," Hermione said, looking over at him.

"Touché," George responded, grinning.

"Anyway," Harry said, trying yet again to keep the conversation on topic, "when I told Ron and Hermione what I'd heard, we agreed that there had to be other things protecting the stone, not just Fluffy. And Quirrell had probably done some Dark Arts spell that Snape hadn't figured out how to break yet."

"So what's keeping Snape from the Stone so far was Fluffy... and Quirrell?" Ginny asked, sounding worried.

"Basically, yes," Ron said, nodding. Everyone was looking quite alarmed by now.

"How quickly did he cave, then?" Sirius asked, his eyes narrowed.

"As far as we could tell, he didn't. For weeks. We could hear Fluffy still growling away in the third floor corridor. Snape remained just as sour as he always was. Quirrell seemed his normal, stuttering self."

"Quirrell was holding out against Snape? Who was likely quite intimidating?" Remus asked. "From what I've heard, that's about as possible as Harry and Malfoy becoming best friends."

"Exactly. We half expected him to give out any day. Any time we saw him we always tried to be nice to him, though. And we started telling people to stop making fun of him," Harry said, looking over at Ron and Hermione with a sort of disguised look of annoyance, and they looked back similarly. A few others caught the looks and seemed a bit curious, but said nothing.

"And then, miraculously, we managed a couple of weeks where nothing really happened," Ron said. He looked over to the other two again, who both nodded in agreement. "One of the rare periods of calm."

"During which I realized that exams weren't very far off!" Hermione exclaimed. "How I hadn't started studying earlier, I still don't know."

"If I remember correctly, 'not very far off' was actually over two months," Ron grumbled.

"Oh, you know full well if it hadn't been for me you wouldn't have studied at all until most likely the week before," Hermione said.

"I would have studied more than that!" Ron responded.

Hermione turned a calculating eye his way. "Oh, really?"

"Yes! I would have!"

"How often do you say that about other schoolwork? That you'd start it early, get it done so you don't have to do it last minute. And how many times have you come to me asking for help because 'it's due tomorrow and I really don't know how to get it done and I really need your help please?'"

Hermione looked at Ron expectantly, but he just crossed his arms and slouched down a little, ears turning red and grumbling under his breath. Harry caught the phrases 'that's different' and 'not the point' before Ron fell silent, looking extremely put out.

"That's what I thought," Hermione said, a slight smirk on her face as she sat back. Everyone else was looking highly amused by the little quarrel the two had just had. Especially the Twins, who shared identical evil grins. Harry knew they weren't going to let him forget about it for a while.

He decided to take pity on Ron, though, and he attempted yet again to steer the conversation back on topic. "Anyway, we were sitting in the library, studying. When we saw Hagrid."

"You mean out the window, or...?" George asked.

Harry laughed. "No, but I can understand why you'd think that. We were just as surprised to see him in the library. And he seemed to be hiding something behind his back while we were talking to him, which made the whole thing a lot more suspicious."

"He had to be up to something, I don't think we ever knew him to be in the library once while we were at school," Sirius said thoughtfully.

"Padfoot, I never knew you to be in the library when we were at school. How would you know?" Remus asked, looking amused.

"Well, Moony, did you ever see him in the library?"

"I never saw him there, no."

"Point proven."

"But you didn't answer... Oh, never mind," Remus said, shaking his head and still looking a bit amused.

Harry smiled and laughed a bit over the trivial conversation the two Marauders had, but at the same time he had a sudden thought. He could hardly seem to keep the conversation on track anymore; everyone going was off on anecdotes. But he really wasn't very bothered by it. He didn't really want to get to the part of the story with the corridor, which was quickly coming. His mind kept returning back to that.

There was no real reason to be so worried. It wasn't like he had to go down the corridor and face Quirrell again, after all. He was just sort of nervous as to how everyone would take it. The previous reactions they'd seen so far suggested not well, especially by Sirius and Mrs. Weasley. She'd fuss over him and Ron and Hermione, whereas Sirius would most likely be quite upset by the fact that he'd had to face Voldemort back then.

He suddenly heard his name and jumped, being broken out of his thoughts. He blinked and looked around, noticing everyone was looking at him. "Sorry, what?"

"I was just saying that Hagrid nearly had a panic attack when we told him that we knew about Fluffy, who Nicolas Flamel was, and that we knew what Fluffy was guarding," Ron said.

"Oh, right, yeah. He did. He refused to talk about it in the library and told us to come and visit him later. Though he didn't promise us any information," Harry said. He was still aware that a few people were looking at him strangely, but he just ignored it.

"And then after he left, I went to look and see what section he had been in, and as it turned out... He was looking at books about dragons," Ron said cautiously.

"Which prompted me to remember that Hagrid had told me that he'd always wanted to own one," Harry added.

"Oh no. Please tell me he didn't," Remus said, leaning back and pinching the bridge of his nose.

"Well, we went to visit him as soon as we were done in the library," Harry said.

"And Hagrid was acting a bit strange. All the curtains were drawn on his house, he had a fire blazing even though it was a warm day out, and he quickly closed the door behind us as we walked in," Hermione said.

"Trust you to remember all those little details," Ron said, looking impressed.

"Remembering little details sometimes comes in handy," Hermione said, shrugging.

"Very true. Anyway, we asked him about what else was guarding the Stone apart from Fluffy and whatever Quirrell had done. And he was a bit hesitant to answer, but with some careful flattery from Hermione, he eventually told us," Harry said proudly.

Sirius and the Twins switched their gazes over to Hermione, also seemingly quite impressed now.

"It wasn't really that hard. I just told him that I knew he knew, because he knows about everything that goes on. And I asked who Dumbledore had trusted enough to help guard the stone, aside from himself," she said.

"Brilliant," Sirius remarked, and Hermione rolled her eyes a bit, but continued smiling.

"It definitely was, because he told us right away," Harry said. "He loaned Fluffy to Dumbledore, Professors Sprout, Flitwick, McGonagall, Quirrell, and Dumbledore himself all did something. And... Snape, as well."

"Snape was in on protecting it?" Sirius asked, sounding irritated. "Dumbledore trusted him to help with protecting something extremely valuable?"

"Yes. And that was how we figured that Snape most likely knew how to get past everything except Fluffy and whatever Quirrell had done. It would have been easy for him to find out."

"So basically, Ginny was right before. The only things keeping Snape away from the Stone were Fluffy, and Quirrell holding out against him," Fred said.

"Exactly. We were sort of distracted from thinking about all that, though. It was really hot in his cabin, and I asked to open a window. But Hagrid said that he couldn't. And then he looked into his fire. And sitting there in the middle of it, was a large, black egg," Harry said.

"He actually did get his hands on a dragon egg?" Remus asked, eyebrows raised. "How on earth did he do that?"

"Apparently, he won it from some stranger in a game of cards at a pub," Harry answered.

"Of course. How else would he have gotten it? Completely mental" Sirius said, shaking his head.

"Not to mention illegal," Mr. Weasley added.

"How was he planning to care for it?" Remus asked curiously.

"Well, the book he got from the library said to feed it on a mixture of chicken blood and brandy," Hermione said.

"Chicken blood and brandy," Remus repeated. "Of course."

"Then a few weeks later at breakfast, we got a hastily written not that said simply, 'It's hatching'," Harry said. "So during morning break we went back down to Hagrid's, and we made it just in time."

"You actually got to see it hatch?" Sirius asked. "That must have been amazing. Yes, illegal, but amazing nonetheless."

"It definitely was. How often to you get the chance to see a dragon hatch? Of course, Hagrid was completely captivated by it the second that it flopped out onto the table," Harry said.

Ron snorted. "You could say that again. He called himself 'mummy'."

"Mummy?" Fred asked, sounding highly amused.

"Hagrid being mummy to a baby dragon. You don't hear that every day," George said thoughtfully.

"Definitely true. But we didn't stay for very long after that. Because Hagrid saw someone looking in the window… and that someone happened to be Draco Malfoy."

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	13. Norbert and the Forest

**Okay, chapter thirteen guys! Hope you like it! :D**

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"Malfoy. That little shit," Fred said, shaking his head.

"Fred!" Mrs. Weasley scolded.

"It's true, mum! He hates Hagrid! He's always trying to get him sacked," Ron said quickly.

"And if he doesn't try to do something that gets Harry or Hagrid in trouble, then I'll eat my broomstick," George said seriously.

"Well, he certainly did hold the dragon over our heads. For about a week, every time he saw one of us, he'd have this nasty grin on his face," Harry said, his voice betraying his annoyance.

"And meanwhile, in that week, the dragon, which Hagrid decided to name Norbert, tripled in size," Hermione said, shaking her head.

"We kept telling Hagrid that he needed to get rid of it. Malfoy knew, and with how it was growing it was going to be bigger than him very quickly. But he refused to let it go because he was afraid it would die."

"Typical Hagrid," Remus said, sighing.

"Really! Who else do you know who can have a gigantic and vicious three headed dog and a dragon as pets?" Ginny said, laughing.

"No one. Because nobody else is mental enough," Sirius said.

"Exactly. We finally managed to get him to agree to an idea Harry came up with though," Hermione said.

"Charlie," Ron said simply in answer to the curious looks that were being thrown toward the trio.

"Do you mean your brother?" Mrs. Weasley asked, her eyes narrowing.

"Yes. He works with dragons, so we wrote him and asked if he could somehow get Norbert and take him back to Romania with him," Harry said.

Both the Weasley parents looked a little bit shocked, though Mr. Weasley said, "That is somewhat smart, I suppose."

"It is. Hagrid would agree to that, seeing as he knows Charlie. And he knew that Charlie would take good care of Norbert," Ron said. "It was genius. I only wish we'd come up with that earlier."

"True. Then you wouldn't have had to go down to Hagrid's every day for around a week to help him feed Norbert," Harry said. "And consequently, you wouldn't have gotten bit."

"The dragon bit you?" Mrs. Weasley asked worriedly.

"Yeah, and then Hagrid told me off for frightening it and sang it a lullaby," Ron muttered.

"But thankfully, Charlie's reply came back that night. He luckily had a few friends going to go see him a few days later, so he offered to have them pick up Norbert and take him," Harry said.

"Great, but... How were you going to manage getting Norbert to them without being caught with it?" Sirius asked curiously.

"That was the only problem," Hermione said. "We had to meet them at midnight. On top of the Astronomy Tower."

"Ooh, that's dangerous," Sirius said. "You do have the cloak, but getting Norbert up there with all three of you... That would take some luck."

"Well, not all three of us went. But it definitely did, seeing as we ran into another complication. Malfoy," Harry said grumpily.

"Oh, what has the little bugger done now?" George asked.

"Well, the next morning I had to go to the hospital wing on account of my hand," Ron said. "Apparently, Norbert's fangs were poisonous, seeing as my hand was twice the size it normally was, and the cut was an odd green colour."

"What did you tell Madam Pomfrey?" Sirius asked, sounding slightly amused.

"I told her that a dog bit me, but I'm sure she didn't fall for it," Ron answered.

"Yeah, dog bites don't often turn green, Ronniekins," George said teasingly.

Ron gave him an exasperated look. "Anyway, while I was in the hospital wing, Malfoy came to visit me. And he kept threatening to tell Madam Pomfrey that I was really bitten by a dragon. To this day, I still think he was only being so sour because I hit him during that Quidditch match."

Mrs. Weasley was looking on wide eyed and halfway to speechless, apparently not very happy at the fact that she'd just learned her youngest son had been bitten by a poisonous dragon and had gotten into a fight with another student.

Harry chuckled a bit and said, "Malfoy had told Madam Pomfrey he wanted to borrow a book to get in to see you, though, right?"

"Unfortunately," Ron said. "And he just so happened to take the one that had Charlie's letter stashed inside it."

"You're kidding me," Sirius groaned. The Trio shook their heads. "You three have horrible luck."

"Oh, we know," Hermione agreed.

"So then Malfoy knew about the plan to get rid of Norbert?" Ginny asked.

"Unfortunately," Harry said curly. "But it was too late to change the plan by then. So we had to go for it. Hermione and I went down to Hagrid's on Saturday, seeing as Ron was still in the hospital wing. Hagrid had already gotten Norbert packed up in a crate, ready to go."

"Of course, he practically started sobbing when we took him away," Hermione said.

"Of course he did. He's Hagrid," George said, shaking his head.

"We somehow managed to get Norbert back up to the castle, though. And up the staircases to the corridor right under the tower," Harry said. "Which was quite hard work, because Norbert was heavy and the crate was very bulky."

"It felt like it took hours," Hermione agreed.

"But as we made it into that corridor, we saw something wonderful," Harry said. "McGonagall pulling Malfoy by the ear, shouting at him for being out of bed after hours while he tried to tell her that 'Harry Potter's coming and he's got a dragon!'"

"That is wonderful!" Sirius said, laughing.

"It was! Getting up to the top of the tower was easy after that," Hermione said happily. "And we only had to wait for ten minutes before Charlie's friends showed up and rigged Norbert to a harness they'd made for their broomsticks. And then Norbert was gone, thank Merlin."

"Good. I'm glad that's over with," Remus said.

"Well, here's the thing..." Harry said, trailing off.

"Don't tell me there's more to this?" Sirius said.

"Of course there is," Ron said. "Our plans can never go off perfectly as intended."

"So what went wrong, then?"

"Well, we were so happy that Norbert was gone that we managed to... forget the, er... the cloak at the top of the tower," Harry said slowly.

"And we met Filch at the bottom," Hermione chimed in.

"You didn't," Sirius said disbelievingly.

"Oh, we definitely did," Harry said. "And he definitely took us to see McGonagall."

"I can't even believe your luck," Sirius said, leaning back in his chair.

"Neither can I, sometimes," Harry said. "Because Neville was there too. He'd heard Malfoy talking about how he was going to catch us, and tried to warn us, and he got caught as well."

"That's horrible!" Ginny exclaimed.

"And it gets worse, because all of us got detention, including Neville. And she took fifty points from Gryffindor," Harry said.

"Fifty?" Sirius asked his eyes wide.

"Fifty each," Hermione replied.

"So a hundred and fifty points? She took a hundred and fifty points from Gryffindor? From her own house?" Sirius said, disbelieving.

"Yes. And when I pointed that out, she told me not to tell her what she could and couldn't do," Harry sighed. "The story spread around that morning that it was us who had gotten all the points taken away. And people were not happy with us at all."

"People wouldn't talk to us, wouldn't bother to be quiet about insulting us. It wasn't a very pleasant time," Hermione admitted.

"I felt so bad that I offered to resign from the Quidditch team, but Wood wouldn't let me, because then we wouldn't get any points back by winning games. The rest of the team wouldn't speak to me, though. They just referred to me as 'The Seeker'," Harry said.

"I sure hope you two weren't among that group," Mrs. Weasley said, turning an eye to the Twins, who shifted uncomfortably.

"It's alright, Mrs. Weasley. It's understandable," Harry said. "Though right then I resolved myself that I was going to quit sneaking around and getting myself involved in things that weren't my business."

"That's never going to happen," Sirius said, laughing. "Sorry, Prongslet, but saying you're going to stop meddling is like the Weasleys saying that they're going to stop having red hair."

The Twins, and even Remus snorted.

"Yeah," Harry agreed. "Especially seeing as a week before finals started, I was walking back to the common room from the library when I heard Quirrell sobbing in a classroom and saying 'No, not again, please! All right, all right!'"

"That would certainly test your patience," Sirius said. "And does that mean that Snape was threatening him? And that Quirrell gave in to him?"

"Well, I saw him come out of the classroom, looking very close to crying, straightening his turban. He didn't even notice me. I actually did walk into the room, though. It was basically empty, but there was a door that was open a little bit on the opposite wall."

"And did you go look through it?" Sirius asked hopefully.

"No, because by that time I remembered I was supposed to be staying out of trouble. So I went back to the library to talk to Ron and Hermione."

"Well, that's boring," Fred said. Hermione rolled her eyes.

"I said we should go to Dumbledore and talk to him about it, but Harry pointed out that we had no proof," she said.

"And he'd most likely believe Snape over us, anyways," Ron said.

"So, what? You three just did nothing?" Sirius asked, sounding surprised.

"We went back to studying for exams," Harry said.

Sirius looked pained. "The perfect opportunity to go sneaking around and you go back to studying."

"Oh, don't worry, Sirius. It gets a lot more interesting. Because the next morning, Hermione, Neville and I got notes saying that our detention was that night."

"And how is that interesting? Detentions are quite boring," Sirius said, confused.

"Well, we had to meet Filch down in the entrance hall at eleven o'clock. And he took us to Hagrid's. Because we were going with Hagrid into the Forbidden Forest," Hermione said.

"The Forbidden Forest? Well, that is interesting, then," Sirius said, his attention caught.

"Definitely," Harry agreed, looking over to Hermione. "Malfoy's reaction when he learned we were going into the forest was great though. He sounded pretty scared. And said something along the lines of 'We can't go in the forest! There are all sorts of things in there! Like werewolves!'"

Remus laughed. "Yes, that's practical," he said sarcastically.

"And then he told Hagrid that he wasn't going to go in there, because it was servant work, and if my father heard about this," Harry said. "He sounded like he was going to have a panic attack or something."

The Twins snorted again.

"I quite enjoyed Hagrid telling him off, though," Hermione said, grinning. "Malfoy was furious."

"Bravo Hagrid!" Fred shouted, and George started clapping. "Brilliant. Just brilliant."

"But then Hagrid explained what we were going to do in the forest," Hermione said sadly. "He'd found a dead unicorn a week before. And he'd found more unicorn blood all over the forest, which meant that there was another one that had been hurt. It was our job to go find it, and possibly put it out of its misery."

"That's horrible! What would be hurting unicorns?" Ginny said, looking upset. Harry shared a glance with his two friends.

"Well, Malfoy was worried about that too. But Hagrid said we'd be alright as long as we were with either him or Fang," Hermione said, cleverly skirting around the question. Harry could tell that Sirius had noticed it too, however, and looked a bit suspicious.

"And with that, we set off," Harry said, still watching his godfather. "Hagrid told us that if we found the unicorn, we were supposed to send up green sparks with our wands, and if we were in trouble to send up red sparks. And then we split into two groups. Hermione and I with Hagrid, Malfoy and Neville with Fang."

"Malfoy with Neville? That can't be a good combination. Especially when Hagrid isn't there to keep him in line," George said.

"It's a good thing you two stayed with Hagrid, though. You were probably safer," Remus remarked.

Harry looked over at Hermione, both of them knowing that he didn't actually stay with Hagrid and that he ended up nearly being killed. But Harry cleared his throat and said, "Yeah. You're probably right. But anyways, we walked for a while, before Hagrid suddenly heard something strange. It sounded like a cloak sliding over the forest floor."

"A cloak? What would be wearing a cloak in the Forbidden Forest?" George asked.

"Hagrid said he didn't know what it was, that it shouldn't have been there, and it was probably what was killing the unicorns," Hermione said.

Most everyone was starting to look slightly nervous by this point, listening anxiously. Harry could feel the tension starting to grow.

He cleared his throat again, and said, "And then after a very unhelpful meeting with a couple of centaurs, who were very interested in how bright Mars was, we saw red sparks go up."

"Neville and Malfoy were in trouble?" Ginny exclaimed.

"Who cares about Malfoy? Just as long as Neville didn't get hurt..." George said.

"He didn't. Malfoy thought it would be funny to sneak up behind him and grab him. Which scared him, so he sent up red sparks," Harry said.

"I'll say it again. That little shit," Fred said. Mrs. Weasley was looking so nervous that she didn't even attempt to scold him this time, just keeping a tight grip on Mr. Weasley's hand.

"Anyway, Hagrid was furious. He changed the groups, so Neville got to stay with him and Hermione, and I went with Malfoy and Fang, because I wouldn't scare as easily," Harry said.

"And so the actual punishment part of the detention starts. Being forced to be with Malfoy," George said.

"It wasn't pleasant, but I can handle him," Harry said. "We walked through the forest for a while, the path getting harder to follow, and the puddles of unicorn blood becoming more and more frequent."

"Oh no," Ginny said quietly.

"And finally, we came upon a clearing, and something bright white lying on the ground..."

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**So? What did you think? Am I evil for leaving it right there? Let me know in a review! XD**


	14. Unicorn Blood and Centaur Friends

**Here we are, hope you like it!**

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"You found the unicorn?" Ginny asked, her voice quiet and nervous sounding. One look over at her showed that she was staring at him anxiously, wide eyed and tense. All that over a unicorn... Harry hated to imagine how everyone else was going to be once he got just a little bit farther into his story.

"Yes, we did. It was lying in the clearing. But it was already dead, unfortunately," Harry answered. Ginny made a sort of sad sounding sigh, a cross between an 'oh' and an exhalation of the breath she'd been holding. The others all looked just as upset.

"That must have been awful. I couldn't imagine something so beautiful and sad and horrible all at once," Ginny said.

"It was. But that... That's not even the worst of it." Harry sighed. He practically felt seven sets of ears perk up, and seven people's attentions shift completely to him.

He fidgeted with the cushion he was sitting on for a few seconds, before Hermione elbowing him and whispering, "Go on. You have to tell them, so just get it over with."

"Alright, alright. I was just starting to walk toward it, when I heard something... that made me freeze. A sort of slithering noise over the leaves of the forest floor," Harry said.

"Wait... Like the noise Hagrid heard before? That he said was probably what had been killing the unicorns?" Sirius asked, leaning forward in his chair.

"Yeah. Exactly like that. But this time, out of the darkness along the edge of the clearing... a hooded figure came crawling across the ground toward the unicorn. All three of us, Malfoy, Fang, and I, were just staring, watching it. And as soon as it reached the unicorn it... the figure began to drink its blood," Harry said, shifting positions a few times, waiting for an outburst from his audience. He wasn't disappointed.

A few people all started talking at once, and he could just make out a few of the statements from a couple of them..

"Ew! Who would do that?"

"It was a person? Not a creature?"

"That's disgusting! What would anyone do that for?"

"How could anyone do such a thing?"

Harry rolled his eyes. "Let me finish before you ask questions, okay? It's likely that a few of them may very well be answered as we go along," Harry said quickly, sighing again at the definitely horrified faces of everyone in the room.

"Sorry, Harry. Go on," Remus said, looking a bit paler than usual. In fact, most of the adults were, as they knew what purpose drinking unicorn blood had and why it was such a horrible thing.

"Okay, well as soon as that... er, figure, started drinking the blood, Malfoy freaked out. He screamed very loudly, and both he and Fang just started running. But, of course, that attracted the attention of the person hovering over the unicorn."

"That little..." George started, but stopped himself before he said anything his mother wouldn't approve of. Though from the way she was staring at Harry, and the fact that Mr. Weasley looked like he was in considerable pain because she was gripping his hand so tightly, he didn't think she would have scolded him.

"Yeah. It stopped drinking the blood, and looked up at me. Of course it had blood all over its front, which was kind of horrifying. And then it stood up and started coming towards me. Quickly."

"Oh, Merlin! What did you do?" Ginny asked, her voice a bit more high pitched than normal.

"I didn't have time to do anything. Because my scar started hurting so badly that I just couldn't. It felt like it was on fire. That was the worst pain I'd ever felt at that point in my life."

"Wait. That... that can't mean..." Sirius said, looking like he was piecing things together and realizing just _who_ was drinking the blood. Harry just gave him a look, and he nodded a little, staying quiet, though a very uneasy quiet.

"Right at that moment though, I heard hooves. And something jumped clean over me, running straight at that figure. But that's all I saw of what happened then, I had to sit down, my scar hurt so bad. A few minutes later though, when the pain had died down, I realized that it was a centaur that had charged at the figure."

"A centaur? You were saved by a centaur? That's strange, centaurs normally don't do that sort of thing," Remus mused.

"Yeah. So I learned," Harry said, nodding slowly. "But anyway, the centaur introduced himself as Firenze. He realized who I was and told me I had best get back to Hagrid, because the forest was not safe at that time, especially for me."

"Obviously," Mrs. Weasley muttered, still looking half terrified with a hand over her chest like she was trying to calm her heartbeat back to normal.

"Firenze then told me he would help me get back to Hagrid and to safety… and the fastest way to do so was to ride."

"Wait, you rode a centaur?" Fred asked, sounding impressed. "We've always wanted to try that..."

"Fred! You may not ride a centaur!" Mrs. Weasley exclaimed immediately, sounding like she couldn't believe she'd just had to utter that sentence. Though, the strange sentences happened so often that she didn't seem surprised by it, either.

"Yeah, you'd have trouble with that," Harry said. "Centaurs don't like to be ridden. The two centaurs Hagrid had talked to earlier, named Ronan and Bane, I think, they showed up right after I got on his back, and they were completely furious with him for letting me."

"But he was trying to keep you safe? Surely they would have been okay with that?" Ginny asked, sounding confused.

"Centaurs are very strange, Ginny," Remus said. "They don't think like that. They detest being treated like they're anything less than human. Although, they aren't particularly fond of humans to begin with."

"True," Harry agreed. "They told him he was acting like a common mule for letting a human ride on his back, that he was interfering with what was in the fates, or set by the heavens. Something along those lines. But Firenze was just as furious at them. He actually reared up; I nearly fell off his back. And he yelled that he had set himself against what was hiding in the forest, even if that meant he had to have humans by his side."

"So, what was lurking in the forest?" George asked, sounding nervous.

"Well, Firenze finally walked away from the other two centaurs, and after a few minutes of walking he suddenly stopped in this dense clump of trees. And he asked me if I knew what unicorn blood was used for. I didn't know, so he told me."

"Unicorn blood. A terrible thing. Only for the most desperate and horrible of people," Sirius said, sounding disgusted.

"What does it do?" Fred asked, sounding like he didn't want to know.

"Drinking the blood of a unicorn," Remus started, "will ensure that you stay alive. It doesn't make you immortal. It just keeps you from dying. Even if you're hurt so badly that you should be dead." He sighed, rubbing a hand over his eyes before continuing. "But, when you have killed something so innocent and pure to save yourself... you become cursed the second you drink it. And you will forever live a cursed life."

"But who would do that?" Ginny asked. Her eyebrows were knitted together in concern and disgust.

"That's what I asked," Harry said. "I also asked, wouldn't death be better if you had to live a cursed life? Firenze said that I was right in thinking that... Unless you could get your hands on something else to drink that was even more powerful. Something that would mean you could never die and would bring you back to full strength. Something that was hidden in the school at that very moment."

"Something like the Philosopher's Stone," Sirius said, his voice a bit gruff. The eyes of those who hadn't put the pieces together in their minds widened, and it almost would have been comical had the situation not been so completely serious.

"Exactly," Harry said. "But I still didn't get who would do such a thing. That was the next question I asked Firenze. And his answer was something similar to, 'Can't you think of anyone who has clung to life for many years, waiting for a chance to return to power?'"

There was a completely still silence, only broken up by a few gasps as the others understood.

"You'd just met Voldemort for the second time in your life," Sirius said, looking very grim. He had a very firm grip on the arm of the chair he was seated in.

"I had," Harry said, confirming it. Several sets of worried eyes were turned to him, and he felt the need to remind everyone once again that he was completely fine, that all of this had happened over three years ago. But instead, he just carried on with the story, knowing that there was worse to come yet. "I didn't have a lot of time to come to terms with that knowledge, though. Hagrid showed up just then. And Firenze left, telling me I was safe and that he hoped the planets had been read wrongly."

"I'm hoping you went back to the school then?" Mrs. Weasley asked, looking like she would faint if he replied that they hadn't.

"Yes, of course we did. And we, Ron, Hermione, and I, talked over everything that had just happened," Harry said, nodding towards his two friends. "I came to the conclusion that Snape most likely wanted to steal the stone for Voldemort, and that Voldemort was waiting in the forest for when he actually did."

"So you still thought that Snape was involved with everything then?" George asked.

"Well, we knew for a fact that he'd tried to get past Fluffy once, so we figured he had to be in on something. And we also figured it would explain the amount of pressure he was putting on Quirrell. Because he had even more pressure put upon himself," Ron said.

Sirius looked about ready to go and strangle Snape, wherever he was. The thought of what Sirius was going to say when the truth about Snape came out crossed Harry's mind, but he dismissed it quickly, realizing there was still a bit to get through before that point.

"But then I brought up Dumbledore," Hermione said, speaking while Harry was musing that over in his head. "Dumbledore was the only wizard that You-Know-Who was ever afraid of. So that was something. That was going to keep him safe. As long as Dumbledore was around, he couldn't be hurt."

"The one thing I had working in my favour," Harry said, letting out a sort of bitter laugh. "Although, after we finished talking that night, so late that the sun was starting to come up, we all went to bed and… I found the Invisibility Cloak folded up under the sheets of my bed, with a note that said 'just in case'."

"Who would have given that back to you?" Sirius asked, sounding very surprised. "Who would even have known about it? And known where it had been?"

"Once again, I was just as confused as you are. But I wasn't complaining," Harry said quickly. "I was very glad to get it back."

"And I don't blame you! To the best of my knowledge, no one knew about James' cloak. Which is why I'm so confused. Am I thinking right, Moony?" Sirius asked, turning towards his friend.

"Yes, Padfoot. I believe so," Remus answered thoughtfully.

"Regardless of some silly cloak," Mrs. Weasley said, earning a couple of glares in her direction, "You just met You-Know-Who in the Forbidden Forest! That must have been terrifying, you poor dear!"

Harry cringed a little bit when her voice quivered; sounding awkwardly like it was breaking from crying.

"That was true," Harry said. "I did start having a few nightmares, the same as in the beginning of the year, with bursts of green light and a high pitched, cruel laugh. Only this time they were invaded with dark, hooded figures that had unicorn blood dripping down their fronts."

"Yeah, I remember, you didn't sleep much that week. Which was wonderful, seeing as exams were a few days after your trip into the forest," Ron said.

"I'll still don't understand how I made it through exams knowing that Voldemort was hiding out in the forest, and he could come bursting through the castle doors at any second," Harry said, shaking his head. "But I did somehow manage it. I ignored the pain in my scar that throbbed all week and got through them."

"It would be very, very foolish to hope that you spent one last quiet week at school before you went home for the summer wouldn't it?" Sirius asked.

The Trio exchanged glances, looking slightly amused.

"How could you expect us to spend a quiet week?" Ron asked.

"It definitely wasn't, seeing as what happens next is the most… well, dangerous part of our first year…"

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**Reviews are always appreciated!**


	15. Putting the Pieces Together

**Chapter fifteen! Hope you all like it! **

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"So you mean to say that stumbling across Voldemort in the Forbidden Forest while he was drinking unicorn blood and almost being attacked by him actually wasn't the most dangerous part of your year?" Sirius asked, looking like he didn't want to know what came next. And quite rightly, Harry thought.

"Of course it wasn't. That wasn't nearly dangerous enough," Ron said, shaking his head. "And nothing was resolved yet, either. The Philosopher's Stone was still in the school, Snape was still hovering about everything, and You-Know-Who was still out in the forest."

"And even with Harry's new 'no getting involved' policy, you know they couldn't just leave it at that," Fred said, like it was plain as day.

"Well, how much more dangerous could it possibly get, right?" Sirius asked hopefully.

Harry shared a few glances with Ron and Hermione, before Ron said, "You have no idea."

Mrs. Weasley, who had been fidgeting nervously through that whole conversation, said, "Perhaps I should get everyone a mug of tea before we really keep going. To help calm the nerves."

She stood and quickly bustled out of the room, everyone looking after her. "You know," Remus said, "That's a very wise decision on her part. What's coming is very likely going to be... er, stressful, I'm sure. A cup of tea might help some of us stay a bit calmer." His eyes wandered over to Sirius.

"Moony! I won't need tea to be calm! I can handle myself!" Sirius said, looking as though he was slightly offended.

"Yeah, okay Sirius. Like you haven't been in silent panic mode a couple of times already," George said, raising his eyebrows.

Harry looked over to the door Mrs. Weasley had just left through. He knew that she'd most likely been in silent panic mood as well. And this argument was going to last a while, seeing as his godfather was one of the most stubborn people he knew. "I think I'm going to go and help with the tea," Harry said, quickly standing up and walking towards the hall.

Just as he reached the doorway, he distinctly heard Sirius mutter, "I was not in silent panic mode."

He chuckled a bit as he shut the door behind himself, walking the path down to the kitchens. Mrs. Weasley was the one who was clearly worrying the most. Well, besides Sirius, because no matter what he said, he was definitely quite affected by what Harry had said. Though he'd already had that conversation with his godfather.

He pushed the kitchen door open, spotting Mrs. Weasley rummaging through one of the cupboards, pulling out tea mugs and a small box of tea bags. He stepped inside and let the door fall shut behind him, saying, "Mrs. Weasley?"

She started, dropping one of the tea mugs on the floor, where it cracked down the side, the handle breaking off and shattering. "Oh, Harry dear! You startled me!" she said, quickly pulling her wand out and fixing the mug so that the pieces flew back together and up into her hand, where she placed the now completely intact mug onto the countertop with the others.

"Sorry," he said apologetically. "I just wanted to see if you needed any help with the tea."

"Oh, how sweet of you! Thank you, dear!" she said, giving him the task of distributing the tea bags. He started placing them in the mugs, and he watched her for a moment as she went in search of sugar. She still seemed a bit pale and upset.

"You know, Mrs. Weasley... There really isn't much use in getting upset over everything. It's all in the past," Harry said. She stopped what she was doing and looked over to him.

"I know that, dear. But you shouldn't have had to face any of these horrible things. It's terrible that you have, being so young," she said slowly.

Harry sighed. Again with the 'you shouldn't have had to'. "It's alright, though. I can handle this stuff."

"But how many times have you been in life threatening situations? How many times have you been hurt? Nearly killed? It's not fair," Mrs. Weasley said, tearing up a little bit.

"As unfair as it may be, it's happening. And there's no way to change that. But getting upset over things that are already over and done with isn't going to help anything. I'm okay right now. You don't need to worry about how I got hurt three years ago," Harry said.

"Of course I need to worry, dear. Worrying is a mother's job," she said, stepping over and hugging him. "Now, why don't we take this tea up so you can finish telling us all what's happened?"

"Alright. But just remember, it was three years ago. It's no use getting so upset," Harry said, picking up the tray she'd prepared.

"I'll try," she said, pushing the door open so he could walk through and start up the stairs. Once they reached the Drawing Room, she pushed the door open again, and Harry walked in, handing everyone a mug before sitting back down with his own.

"So, Harry. Continue on," Remus said after a few seconds.

"Alright. Well, I guess we'd just finished our last exam, and we were sitting out by the lake. When I realized something. Hagrid wanted a dragon more than anything, and he just so happened to meet a stranger with a dragon egg in his pocket?" Harry said.

"That is odd, isn't it? The chances of just randomly meeting that guy..." Ginny said, looking thoughtful.

"Exactly. So we immediately went to go see Hagrid and ask him about the guy. Apparently, he'd kept his cloak on and his hood up the entire time, and he kept buying Hagrid drinks," Harry said. "He also said that the guy wanted to make sure he could take care of the dragon. And that he'd told the guy that he looked after Fluffy, so a dragon ought to be easy. This guy seemed genuinely interested in Fluffy, when Hagrid mentioned him, as well."

A collective groan went through the room. "So the guy got Hagrid drunk and questioned him about Fluffy? That can't be good," Sirius said, shaking his head.

"Oh, it wasn't. Because Hagrid said that taking care of Fluffy was a breeze. All you had to do was play him a bit of music, and Fluffy would immediately fall asleep," Harry said.

"Hagrid told that guy how to get past Fluffy?" Ginny said, sounding alarmed.

"Of course, he was all upset that he'd let the information slip to us, but we didn't stick around too long," Harry said. "We went straight back to the castle."

"And we decided that we finally had to go to Dumbledore," Hermione said. "With everything we knew, we figured that Snape would be able to get to the stone at any time."

"But while we were talking, McGonagall showed up. And she wanted to know what we were doing inside," Ron said.

"So I told her that we needed to speak to Dumbledore and that it was urgent. And she asked me what it was about..." Harry said.

"How in the world did you explain that one?" George asked, sounding a bit amused.

"Well, I told her it was kind of a secret," Harry said.

"I bet she took that well," Fred said sarcastically.

"She was definitely annoyed with us," Ron said. "But she did tell us that Dumbledore was gone. He'd gotten an urgent message from the Ministry and had left. Ten minutes before."

Everyone seemed to pale a little bit. As long as Dumbledore was there, it was pretty safe. But with him gone... "That can't have just been a coincidence, could it?" Sirius asked slowly. A few people shook their heads.

"Of course, when I reacted to that and told her it was important, she got even more upset with me. I finally just said 'it's about the Philosopher's Stone!' And I told her that we knew that... someone... was going to try and steal it," Harry said.

"She was completely shocked by that. She was so surprised that we knew about the stone, she dropped all those books she was holding, remember?" Hermione said. "And she just told us that we didn't need to worry about it because it was well protected and no one could possibly steal it. And she wouldn't hear any more."

"That's right. She just told us to go outside in the sunshine," Ron said, snorting.

"I take it that you did not go sit in the sunshine then?" Mr. Weasley said looking like he already knew the answer.

"No. Because we knew that Snape was most likely going to try and steal the stone that night," Harry said. "He knew how to get past Fluffy, he knew about everything else, and then on top of everything Dumbledore was out of the way and everyone else would be busy celebrating the end of exams."

"That makes sense," Remus agreed reluctantly. "That would be the time for whomever to try something."

"Exactly. And on top of that, just as we were debating what to do next, Snape walked up to us," Hermione said.

"What does that overgrown bat want?" Fred asked angrily.

"Well, he said several things. Like 'with all the hanging around you're doing, people might think you're up to something', 'Gryffindor really can't afford to lose any more points, can it?', and 'any more nighttime wanderings and I will personally see that you are expelled'," Harry stated.

Sirius shifted angrily in his seat, but remained quiet. The Twins, however, both made a few remarks that caused them to receive a scolding from their mother.

"And now with all those taunts that Snape threw at you three, you were even more eager to make sure he was stopped, correct?" Remus asked.

"You could say that," Ron said, nodding.

"So what did you do next then?" Sirius said, seeming like again he didn't really want to know the answer.

"We decided to split up," Harry said. "Hermione went and waited outside the staff room to keep an eye on Snape, and Ron and I went to the third floor corridor to watch the door to Fluffy and the trapdoor."

"Although that didn't go too well," Ron said. "Just as we got up there, McGonagall walked by. And she was pretty fed up with us. She threatened to take another fifty points from Gryffindor if we didn't leave it alone."

"And after a few minutes of watching the staff room, Snape came out and asked me what I wanted, so I made up something about wanting to see Professor Flitwick," Hermione said. "I ended up losing track of Snape, though."

"And that was it. There was no other alternative left. I had to try and stop Snape, because there was no one else to do it," Harry said.

"You two didn't do anything to stop him either, did you?" Sirius groaned.

"Well, we tried at first," Ron said. "But then, Harry, you made that speech about how things were when You-Know-Who was in power and how house points didn't matter anymore."

"And that if you were caught and expelled before you made it to the stone that it would only have been dying a little bit later, because you weren't ever going over to the dark side," Hermione said softly. "There was nothing we could say or do to stop you. You were going to go through that trapdoor no matter what. Because he killed your parents."

"How could we argue with that?" Ron said. "We were going with him. And there was nothing he could say or do to stop us, either."

They all turned to look at one another. That had been the first time of many that they'd stuck together through dangerous or tough situations.

"So you all went?" Remus asked. Three firm nods answered him.

"We waited until that night, when the common room was empty," Hermione said. "I looked over my notes and things just in case I could find anything useful."

"And finally, I went up to get the cloak. And I brought the flute Hagrid whittled me for Christmas too, so we could play Fluffy to sleep. And we were about to check to make sure the cloak would cover all of us-" Harry said, before being cut off by Sirius.

"Oh, it definitely would! It used to cover all four of us!" he said, looking over at Remus and grinning a little bit. He earned a slightly exasperated look from Mrs. Weasley, as though she was saying 'stop encouraging them'.

Harry laughed a little. "We just wanted to make sure that one of our feet didn't stick out so it looked like a random foot was walking down the corridor. However, we were interrupted just then."

"By what?" Ginny asked curiously, looking a little tense.

"Well, by..."

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	16. The Third Floor Corridor

**Things are starting to get interesting! I hope you guys like it!**

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"By Neville," Hermione said softly.

"Neville? Had he not gone to bed or something?" George asked.

"You could say that," Harry said. "He told us that he knew we were going out again. And he wasn't going to let us, because we'd get caught and get in trouble. And lose Gryffindor more points."

"He also told us that he'd fight us if he had to," Ron said, shaking his head and chuckling.

"This is Neville we're talking about?" Fred asked, looking shocked. "Neville ?"

"Yeah. Neville," Ron said to his brother.

"Wow," George said. "Looks like Neville's actually got it in him after all."

"He does. But at that point, he didn't have anything against Hermione," Ron said, smirking over at her.

"What did you do?" Sirius asked suspiciously, noticing how her cheeks took on a bit of pink colour.

"Well, it was desperate. We had to get past him. It was a matter of urgency," she said seriously.

"What?" Sirius asked, now starting to grin a bit.

"I… Oh, I put the full body bind curse on him," Hermione admitted. "I apologized though! I mean, he forgave us! And I had to, it was important!"

"Brilliant!" Sirius said, roaring with laughter. Hermione just crossed her arms, looking slightly proud of herself.

"Anyway," Harry said. "We got out of the common room okay after that. We passed Mrs. Norris on the way, but she didn't do anything. And it went relatively well. Except we did meet Peeves. And he heard us and threatened to call Filch."

"Ooh, tough luck. How did you get out of that one?" George asked.

"Harry was the one that did it!" Ron exclaimed. "He put on a hoarse voice and pretended to be the Bloody Baron. Told him that the Bloody Baron was invisible for a reason and that he'd better stay far away from the third floor!"

"Good thinking, Harry," Remus said. "That's about the one thing you could have done that would have worked."

"And it did," Harry said. "Peeves scampered as quick as he could. And then we were left face to face with the door to the third floor corridor."

The mood in the room seemed to change, becoming more tense. Everyone's thoughts of 'They probably didn't even have to go down, something happened, some teacher came along and helped them' vanished.

"The door was already open a crack," Hermione said. "We figured that Snape had already gone down. Especially when we noticed that there was a harp laying on the floor by Fluffy's feet."

"Wait Snape? Playing the harp?" George asked, breaking into laughter. "Can you imagine that?"

"Boys, hush," Mrs. Weasley said, not looking like she was in the mood for jokes.

Harry cleared his throat. "I started to play the flute, and Fluffy drifted right off to sleep, like Hagrid told us."

"Hermione and I went and opened the trap door then," Ron said. "I couldn't see any sort of bottom or way of getting down. Just a dark tunnel that you had to drop down into."

Mrs. Weasley groaned slightly.

"I gave the flute to Hermione so she could keep Fluffy asleep," Harry said. "And I jumped down first."

Sirius shifted in his seat slightly, looking grim. "And what did you find at the bottom?"

"Well, I landed on something soft. Some sort of plant," Harry said. "So I called for Ron and Hermione to follow me, which they did."

"And thank Merlin for Hermione, or we would have been goners right then," Ron said.

"What? What was it?" Mrs. Weasley asked worriedly.

"We'd landed in a big Devil's Snare plant," Hermione said coolly.

"Devil's Snare?" Remus asked seriously. "But that strangles anything that gets caught in it!"

"Strangles?" Mrs. Weasley asked, her eyes widening as she looked over at Remus.

"Hermione jumped off of it right away, she knew what is was," Harry said. "But Ron and I were already caught and struggling to get free."

"Don't do that!" Mr. Weasley said. "It would only kill you faster!"

"Which is exactly what I told them. But they kept moving, so I had to conjure up flames to kill it," Hermione said.

"And just in time, too. It was getting hard to breathe," Ron said, rubbing at his neck. Mrs. Weasley looked extremely upset over the fact that her son had had any trouble breathing at all.

"As I said then, lucky Hermione pays attention in Herbology," Harry said.

"Yes, it was. Without her both of you would have been killed. Quickly. Once Devil's Snare has you in its grasp, it doesn't let go easily," Remus said.

"Thanks again, for that," Ron said. Hermione just gave him an amused smile.

"Hagrid said that each teacher had contributed something to protecting the stone," Ginny said. "So that must have been Professor Sprout's, right?"

"Definitely. That was one obstacle down, several to go. And the next one we came across was Flitwick's," Harry said. "We could hear some rustling as we came up to the next chamber. When we looked in, it was totally full of bright coloured birds flying around. And we spotted the door on the other side of the room."

"What happened there? Would the birds try to attack you?" Sirius asked.

"Well, that's what we thought too. But when we walked across the room without so much as a wing touching us, we realized something had to be up," Hermione said.

"And after a few seconds, I figured out that the birds weren't actually birds. They were keys, enchanted to fly. And one of them was the key we needed to open the door," Harry said. "There were broomsticks there, so all we had to do was catch it."

"Except for the fact that there were hundreds of keys there," Ron added.

"At least that was a relatively non-dangerous task," Mrs. Weasley muttered to herself.

"And Harry's the best seeker we've ever had! That had to be easy!" Fred said smugly.

"Well, it wasn't easy," Harry said. "But it didn't take too long either. There was one big silver key that looked like it matched the handle. And the feathers on the wing on one side were all crumpled up."

"It had been caught before," Ginny said.

"Exactly. It took a few minutes and a little bit of strategy, but we managed to get it," Harry said. "And we went through to the next chamber."

"You three are doing really well so far," Sirius said, almost a bit nervously. "Besides nearly being killed by a giant plant."

"We actually did do alright. And if it hadn't been for Ron, we wouldn't have made it through the next obstacle. Which was McGonagall's," Harry said.

"That's bound to be a hard one, then," George said jokingly. "How did you help out?"

"Hey!" Ron said, looking slightly offended. "For your information, it was a giant game of Wizard's Chess."

"Wizard's Chess? So you had to win at Wizard's Chess to move forward?" Remus asked.

"Not only that, but we had to take the place of three of the pieces," Harry said.

"But… in Wizard's Chess, pieces that get taken are smashed to bits," Ginny said quietly.

"Exactly," Ron said. Everyone fell silent, visions of life sized chess pieces popping into their minds.

"It was a good thing that we had Ron. We're both rubbish at Wizard's Chess," Harry said, and Hermione nodded.

"So, what happened?" Fred asked anxiously. "How did the game play out?"

"Well, I had Hermione be a castle and Harry a bishop. I was a knight. It was a tough game. But I managed to keep them out of danger and do alright," Ron said.

"Alright? You did brilliantly!" Hermione said. "You took just as many pieces as we lost!"

Ron's ears turned slightly red. "Thanks."

"And you were brave too, to do what you did," Harry added.

"What did you do?" Mrs. Weasley asked, looking worried.

"Ah, right. Well, all I got it so that all we had to do was sacrifice one more piece and Harry would be able to checkmate the king," Ron said.

"Well that's great!" George said nervously. "Isn't it?"

"Not if…" Remus said slowly, looking at Ron. "Not if the piece you had to sacrifice was yourself."

Everyone waited for one of the trio to contradict his statement, staring at them hopefully. But they didn't move.

"There wasn't anything else to do. We couldn't let him get to the Stone. There was no other way," Ron said finally, his expression serious.

"So you sacrificed yourself. That was very brave of you," Sirius said, echoing Harry.

"Oh, Ron," Mrs. Weasley said, shaking off her husband's hand, which was on her shoulder. She got up and went over to hug her son, slightly teary eyed, an odd mix of proud and horrified.

"It's alright, mum. I was fine," Ron said while she squeezed him tightly.

"That was so noble of you," she said, sniffing slightly as she sat back down and Mr. Weasley handed her a tissue.

"It wasn't anything too special," he said, looking just the slightest bit proud of himself now.

"It was too. The queen hit you over the head and knocked you out," Harry said. Everyone winced sympathetically. "Then I checkmated the king and we won. And Hermione and I moved on, like Ron told us to."

The Twins were looking like they'd gained respect for their younger brother. That was good though, Harry thought. It shouldn't be just him that got the credit for doing things. His friends helped him get through everything, they deserved some too.

"The next room we went into smelled horribly," Hermione said. "It made my eyes water."

"What was in there?" Ginny asked curiously.

"A troll," Harry answered. "Bigger than the one we'd met on Halloween. And thankfully already unconscious."

"Good. That's one less thing you'd have to deal with, then," Sirius said, nodding. "And there's no guarantee you two could be lucky enough to beat this one too." A few others nodded in agreement, looking relieved.

"The next room we walked through was obviously Snape's. Seven bottles filled with potions and a scroll sitting on a wooden table," Hermione said. "As soon as we walked in, coloured fire shot up in front of the doorways. Black fire in front of the door to the next room, purple in front of the door from which we'd just come."

"Coloured fire," Ginny repeated, sounding intrigued and looking like she was trying to imagine what it would look like.

"And I'd still be stuck there if it wasn't for Hermione," Harry admitted. "The obstacle we had to get past was a logic puzzle."

"There were seven bottles," Hermione said again. "Three of them held poison inside them. Two had nettle wine. One would get you through the black fire into the next room, and one would get you back through the purple fire. He'd left four clues, and you had to figure out which bottle held what."

"Brilliant," Remus said softly. "To use logic instead of another magical test. Absolutely brilliant. And you cracked it, Hermione?"

She nodded. "It took a few minutes, but I managed to work it out."

"That's our Hermione," Sirius said. "The brightest witch of her age."

She smiled and turned a little pink. "But," Harry said, shifting everyone's attention back to himself. "The bottle she said would get a person through the fire and onward to the next room… it was tiny. Barely one swallows worth."

"Oh no," Sirius said, seeing where his godson was going.

"And we'd left Ron behind. Something about that didn't seem right. Plus, if Hermione got back to Ron and was able to revive him, they could take brooms from the room with the keys and fly back up the trapdoor. And then they could send Hedwig to Dumbledore."

"You went forward alone," Sirius said, his voice somewhat gruff.

"Yes," Harry said.

"But you'd gone through every teacher's protections," Ginny said. She'd obviously been keeping track. "You had to be getting to the end of the corridor."

"What if Snape was just there waiting for you?" Fred asked.

"And what if You-Know-Who was with him?" George added.

"I couldn't just sit around and not do anything. I'd made it that far. And I had to stop Voldemort from getting the Stone. If he got it, he could come back," Harry said. "I knew I wasn't much of a match against whatever was on the other side of that fire. But I had to try."

There was a somewhat stunned silence around the room. Sirius was leaning forward in his seat, staring at his godson. "You were eleven years old," he said finally. "And you were willing to risk your life to stop Voldemort, possibly go face to face with him. Despite knowing everything he'd done, and what he'd done to you. That's incredible."

Harry nodded awkwardly for a second, not feeling like anything he'd done was in any way incredible. "When I went through, though… I didn't see Voldemort."

"Snape," Fred said angrily.

"Actually, no. It wasn't him either," Harry said, earning a few confused looks. "Instead, I saw…"

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	17. Quirrell

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"I saw Quirrell."

There were a few moments of stunned silence where everyone just stared at Harry, occasionally looking over at Ron and Hermione like they were expecting one of them to contradict what he'd said. But they remained silent, their faces grim, as they were the only ones who knew fully what had happened down in the corridor.

"Quirrell," Fred repeated.

"As in the stuttering idiot who was supposed to be teaching us Defense Against the Dark Arts?" George added on.

"The one who couldn't even look in the textbook without shaking like a leaf and twitched every time he looked at someone?"

"The very same," Harry replied. Everyone looked like they weren't able to comprehend that. A few of them looked as if they were trying to picture it in their heads, Quirrell being threatening, but it wasn't working.

"So, not Snape? Not the one who swooped around looking menacing all the time and particularly enjoyed being a cruel hearted ba-"

"Fred!" Mrs. Weasley said, cutting him off before he could finish the sentence.

"Sorry mum. But this is baffling."

"It was to me too," Harry said. "I walked in expecting to find Snape or Voldemort, someone threatening, and what I found was Quirrell. Standing there calmly, not twitchy at all, smiling at me."

"But what would Quirrell be doing there? That doesn't make sense," Ginny mused, looking like she was trying to put the pieces together.

"It didn't, at the time," Harry responded. "He looked so smug, he said he'd been wondering if he'd see me there. I mentioned Snape, and he laughed and said 'Yes, Severus seems more the type doesn't he? It was useful to have him hovering around everyone. No one suspected poor Professor Quirrell next to him'."

"But Snape was always so unfair to you. So rude. And what about what happened with your broom at the Quidditch match?" Ginny said.

"Yes, I mentioned that to him as well. He was the one who was cursing my broomstick, not Snape. Hermione knocked him over as she was hurrying to get to Snape."

"You did say, though, that Snape was definitely doing some sort of spell?" Remus asked, looking to Hermione.

"Oh, yes. He was," Hermione said, nodding.

"He was trying to save me. He was doing a countercurse," Harry said, looking over to Sirius, who looked distinctly confused.

"Snivellus... was trying to save you?" he asked. Harry nodded. "But why would he do that? He... that makes no sense."

Harry shrugged. "I'm not even sure why he did it either, honestly. But remember how he refereed the next match? He was just trying to make sure nothing like that happened again. That's what Quirrell told me, although he did say it was a waste of time, as he was going to be killing me. He also conjured ropes to tie me up."

"He tied you up?" Sirius asked angrily.

Harry nodded. His mind unwillingly flashed back to the graveyard for a second, another place where he'd been tied up, but he pulled himself back to the discussion at hand. "He also revealed that he was the one that let the troll into the castle on Halloween."

"But he was the one who warned us all about it!" George said. "He ran into the feast shouting about it!"

"Yes, as a diversion," Harry said. "As soon as the teachers were going off to the dungeons and the students to their common rooms, he went to the third floor to get a look at what was guarding the stone."

"But Snape... you said that you saw Filch helping him bandage his leg and he'd said something about Fluffy. That meant he had gone," Sirius said.

"To try and stop Quirrell," Harry responded. "He'd gotten himself bitten while trying to head Quirrell off."

Sirius crossed his arms and sat back, looking confused and annoyed. "Makes no sense," he muttered.

"Anyways, at that point, I noticed what he was standing next to. The Mirror of Erised," Harry said.

"The mirror that shows you your desires," Remus said thoughtfully. "What was that doing there?"

"Quirrell said that it was the key to finding the Stone. That he could see himself presenting the Stone to his master, but he didn't know how to get at it," Harry said.

"And by master, he meant..."

"Voldemort, yeah. So I tried to distract him, keep him talking, keep his full attention off the mirror. I mentioned that I'd seen him in the forest talking with Snape, that I'd heard him sobbing in that classroom. That was the only time he slipped and showed a little bit of fear. He had broken down because he was talking to Voldemort, a 'great wizard while he was weak'."

"Wait, he was in the classroom with Quirrell? You-Know-Who was inside Hogwarts?" Mr. Weasley asked.

"That's what I asked as well," Harry said. "Quirrell said something like 'He's always with me. I met him as a foolish young wizard, travelling around, full of false ideas about good and evil. He showed me how wrong I'd been. That there was no good or evil, only power and those too weak to seek it. And since then I've served him very faithfully. Though I've let him down many times, he's had to punish me severely. After I failed to get the stone from Gringotts, he decided to keep a closer eye on me'," Harry said, making a face.

"So he was the one to try and rob Gringotts, then?" Ginny asked. "That makes sense, didn't you see him in Diagon Alley?"

"Yes, I remembered that as well. I'd shaken hands with him in the Leaky Cauldron."

"What does he mean by 'keep a closer eye on me'?" Fred said, as he'd noticed Harry's expression.

"You'll see," Harry said. He sighed. "He shut up then, and started looking the mirror over again. I figured that what I wanted most at that moment was to find the Stone before he did, so if I looked in the mirror, I'd see myself finding it, right?"

"That makes sense," Remus said slowly, nodding.

"I tried to move over towards where I could see the mirror without Quirrell noticing, but the ropes around my ankles were too tight. I just ended up falling over. Quirrell ignored it, he was too focused on the mirror," Harry said. "But after a few minutes, he finally said 'Help me, Master!' I don't know what I was expecting... but it certainly wasn't that another voice seemed to come from him and say 'use the boy'."

"Voldemort?" Sirius asked gravely. "Was Voldemort there as well?"

"Well, Quirrell let me up then, he took the ropes off. I walked over to the mirror, and he told me to look in it. I figured I'd see myself finding the Stone, so I told myself I had to lie about what I saw."

"What did you see?" George asked anxiously. Everyone was watching him with bated breath now.

"I saw myself, looking scared and pale. But after a second, my reflection smiled and reached into its pocket. It pulled out this red stone, winked, and then put it back. And as the Stone went back into its pocket... it also went into mine."

"Wait, you got the Stone?" Ginny asked, eyes widening. "How?" Everyone else was looking just as shocked and confused as she was.

"I had no idea. All I knew was that the Stone was suddenly in my pocket and I was standing next to someone who would definitely kill to get it," Harry said. "Quirrell asked me what I saw after a second, and I made something up. I told him that I was shaking hands with Dumbledore because I'd won the house cup."

"Did he believe it?" Fred asked tensely.

"Oh, yes. Quirrell did. He cursed and told me to get out of the way. I considered making a break for it, but that voice spoke again. It was high, cold. It came from Quirrell, but he wasn't moving his lips. 'He lies!'. Then Quirrell shouted for me to come back and to tell the truth, but before I could say anything else the voice said 'Let me speak to him now, face to face'."

Harry kept his expression calm. He'd faced worse since that night, but he still remembered how terrified he'd been. Everyone else looked wary about what he was going to be saying, confused, nervous. This would be the worst thing he'd told them yet. Sirius had already almost stormed out once, had looked like he was ready to curse something. And Mrs. Weasley might just have a breakdown. Remus was better at keeping himself in check than the others, but Harry was sure he was probably just as internally shocked by what was saying. And Fred, George, and Ginny... they were getting to see exactly what his life was like.

"Quirrell said something about how he wasn't strong enough, but the voice assured him that he was. I couldn't move. It felt like Devil's Snare had me again. I watched as Quirrell reached up and started to peel away his turban."

"I knew there was something off about that turban," one of the Twins muttered.

Harry forced a little smile. "Underneath, on the back of Quirrell's head... was Voldemort."

After a few seconds of shocked and confused silence, Sirius managed to ask, "What?"

"Voldemort's face was on the back of Quirrell's head," Harry repeated. "Deathly white, slits for nose, red eyes."

"How was that possible?" Ginny asked, looking disgusted.

"As Voldemort himself said, he could only have form when he shared another's body. Otherwise he was nothing more than smoke and vapor."

Harry looked around. He'd been talking as casually as he could, but his words still had the effect he'd been hoping to avoid. Everyone was staring at him, unbelieving, terrified even though they knew he was just fine and sitting right in front of them. Sirius was gripping the arm of the chair and had gone pale.

"Voldemort was on the back of Quirrell's head," Mrs. Weasley said faintly, gripping Mr. Weasley's hand tightly, though he didn't even seem to realize that she was. "All year long, Voldemort was right there with the students. And no one knew."

It seemed to sink in with everyone, all of them looking around wide eyed. Harry kept talking, wanting to get through the whole sequence of events before everyone stopped to think too hard. "Anyway. I was face to face with Voldemort. And he told me that he'd been getting a bit stronger, making Quirrell drink unicorn blood for him, but that he wanted to make the Elixir of Life for himself. He said that it would give him his body back and make him powerful again. He also told me that I ought to give it to him from my pocket."

"He knew you had it?" Sirius asked, leaning forward in his seat.

"He did. I don't know how, but he did." Harry took a deep breath. "I won't forget what he said. He told me that it would be better for me to join him and give him the stone, keep my life. Or else I would die begging for mercy just as my parents had."

"They did not," Sirius snarled.

"I know. I shouted it at him. LIAR!" Harry said, shouting the last word and making them jump. "Quirrell started walking backwards so Voldemort was facing me and talking, and he smiled. He said he'd always valued bravery, that my parents had been brave. He told me that he killed my father first, that he put up a courageous fight. And that my mother hadn't needed to die at all, that she was just trying to protect me. If I didn't give him the stone, then she would die in vain."

"Taunting you about the fact that he killed your parents," Remus said flatly, looking angry. "Despicable."

Harry nodded. "I refused. I made a break to the door, but Voldemort shouted 'Seize him!'. Quirrell grabbed my wrist to stop me, and suddenly there was a terrible sharp pain in my scar. It felt like my head was going to split open. But he let go of me after a few seconds."

"Why would he do that?" George asked. Both him and Fred were looking frightened, the polar opposite of their normal selves.

"His hand. It started blistering, burning," Harry answered. "Voldemort kept shrieking at him to grab me, and he lunged at me, knocking me clean off my feet and putting his hands around my neck."

Sirius angrily shot up from his chair, moving to stand behind it. They all watched him for a second, but he just stood there looking furious. "Go on," he said finally, and Harry cleared his through.

"I could hardly see, the pain in my scar was so bad. But I could still see that Quirrell was in pain too. He was screaming. Saying 'I can't hold him, Master! My hands!' He pulled them away from me and I could see they were bright red, shiny, raw looking. Badly burned," Harry explained.

"What's burning him? All he was touching was you," Ginny said slowly.

"I was just as confused as you are. Voldemort screamed at him to kill me and get it over with, but I knew that he couldn't touch me without being in terrible pain, so I reached out and touched his face. He pulled away and rolled off of me, his face starting to blister," Harry said. "I knew the only chance I had was to put him in too much pain to kill me, so I grabbed onto his arm and I hung on as tight as I could."

"But Harry, It caused you just as much pain, didn't it?" Sirius said through gritted teeth.

"Believe me, I know. But what other choice did I have?" Harry said. "It was either that, or Quirrell killed me."

Mrs. Weasley groaned quietly, sounding like she might have been crying a bit. He looked around, seeing everyone staring back at him, horrified. He looked away awkwardly. "I couldn't see anything anymore. I just heard Quirrell screaming, Voldemort yelling 'Kill him!', and some other voice in my head shouting my name. But finally the pain got to be too much, I felt myself passing out, felt Quirrell's arm pulled from my grip. Everything went black."

"What happened then? Were you okay?" Ginny asked, her shaking hand up over her mouth and muffling it slightly.

"Well," Hermione said. "I'd gotten back to Ron alright. It took me a bit to wake him up so we could get back to the brooms and get back up out of the corridor. We were running to the owlery to send a message to Dumbledore, but we ran into him in the Entrance Hall."

"Oh, thank goodness," Mrs. Weasley said quietly.

"He asked us if Harry had gone after him, and we told him he had," Ron said. "He immediately rushed off to the third floor. We stared after him for a minute, before Hermione dragged me to the hospital wing. She said I ought to have my head looked at."

Mrs. Weasley gave Hermione an approving look, mumbling something about how Hermione was smart enough to have enough sense to do that.

"We were still in the hospital wing when Dumbledore brought Harry in," Hermione said. "He was unconscious. We didn't get a good look at him, Madam Pomfrey ushered us out right away. But he didn't look good."

"He was unconscious for the next three days," Ron added.

"Three days?" Sirius exclaimed, moving around the chair into the middle of the room. Mrs. Weasley gasped.

"Dumbledore said that I'd almost died," Harry said quietly. "He was there when I woke up. He explained a few things."

"Like why Quirrell couldn't touch you?"

"Yes, like that. And a few other things too..."

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	18. The End of Year One

**Hey guys, check the bottom A/N for details of what's happening with this story! Thanks, and I hope you like it!**

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"Well, he told me that I'd been out for three days. And that Ron and Hermione would most likely be relieved that I was awake again," Harry said, sending a small smile to his friends.

"Of course we were!" Hermione said immediately. "Those were a terrible few days. We hardly did anything, we were so worried."

"Except get pestered by others who wanted to know what had happened," Ron said, shaking his head. "There were rumours floating around like crazy."

"Dumbledore said that too," Harry said. "Something like 'It's a complete secret what happened with you and Quirrell, so the entire school knows about it'."

"There were some pretty crazy theories," Fred said.

"And we may or may not be responsible for half of them," George added, grinning. The Twins shared a high five, which made the three known as the Golden Trio roll their eyes.

"One of the things Dumbledore told me was that you two were also responsible for attempting to send me a toilet seat," Harry said, smiling perhaps a bit smugly at them.

"Boys!" Mrs. Weasley said, scolding. "I told you no sending any toilet seats!"

"Ah, but mother dearest," George said, still grinning.

"You said no sending them to Ginny," Fred stated, crossing his arms. "You never said-"

"-We couldn't send one to Harry." George finished.

"And Madam Pomfrey confiscated it anyways," Harry said. "She thought it wouldn't be very hygienic, apparently."

"Still, boys, you really shouldn't have-" Mrs. Weasley started again, before Mr. Weasley grabbed her hand.

"Molly, dear, that's all over and done with, you know. No use scolding them over something years old."

She settled back in her chair, still looking a bit ruffled, but now silent.

"What did Dumbledore tell you, Harry?" Sirius asked, leaning forwards. He'd settled himself back in his chair, looking like he was eager to get back to the subject at hand.

"Right. Well, I was a little bit groggy, having just woken up, but I remember that I asked him immediately about the Stone. He said that Professor Quirrell didn't manage to take it from me. He got there in time to save it," Harry said, the sort of amused grin he'd been wearing now gone from his face, replaced by a much more solemn expression. "Apparently he realized as soon as he got to London that he was needed at Hogwarts."

"Damn right, he was," Sirius muttered. Remus sent him a slightly exasperated look, but Harry mostly ignored it in favour of continuing on. As before, with the mirror, it wasn't going to be particularly hard to tell the others. It was just going to be a bit… well, tedious.

"Dumbledore was the one who pulled Quirrell off me," Harry said. "He'd almost thought he was too late. And I told him he almost was, I couldn't have kept the Stone away from Quirrell much longer. Although, he'd been talking about me. He said the effort involved had nearly killed me. He thought it had, for a moment."

"Trust you to think of the Stone before yourself," George said, shaking his head.

"It's typical Harry, isn't it?" Ron asked the room collectively, and everyone nodded in agreement. Harry rolled his eyes again.

"But he told me then that the Stone was destroyed," Harry said, quickly bringing everyone back to the subject.

"Destroyed? But wouldn't that Flamel man and his wife have been living off of it?" Ginny asked.

"I was curious about that too, so I asked. Dumbledore was thrilled that I knew about Flamel, actually," Harry said. "He said something like, "You did do the thing properly then!" But regarding Flamel, he told me that they'd talked, and both of them agreed that it would be for the best that the stone was destroyed."

"Wait, so Flamel agreed to let him destroy it?" Fred asked, sounding confused. "But he knew he'd die without the Elixir!"

"To the well-organized mind, death is but the next great adventure," Hermione said softly. Everyone looked around to her and she looked a little sheepish. "That's what you told us Dumbledore said."

"Yeah, that's what he said," Harry said, nodding. The Twins and Ginny still looked somewhat confused about how a man could just give his life up like that, but most of the adults looked like they could understand it. At least, to some degree. "Anyways, I asked him a few more questions. The one with the simplest answer was 'Could Voldemort find another way to get back to full power?' The answer, of course, was yes."

"There are always ways," Remus said thoughtfully. "It just depends on what lengths you're willing to go to get what you want."

"And for Voldemort, that's about every length possible," Mr. Weasley said.

Everyone nodded collectively for a few seconds, before Harry kept going. "The next question I asked was… Ah, right. Voldemort had told me that my mother hadn't needed to die, she was only protecting me. And I asked him why Voldemort would have wanted to kill me in the first place."

"That is a good question. What did he say?" George asked.

"He said that I was too young to know and that I'd find out when I was older," Harry said, the exasperated tone clear in his voice. Both the Twins groaned. "In fact, I still don't know," Harry added thoughtfully.

"Well, that's boring!"

Harry shrugged. "Believe me, I wish I knew the answer to that question. Either way, I knew it wouldn't be wise to pursue the topic with him, so I went on and asked another question. Why couldn't Quirrell touch me?"

"Love," Sirius muttered, resting his chin on his hand. When everyone looked over to him he sat up. He cleared his throat and repeated, "It was love."

Harry was startled for a second, having forgotten Sirius knew that. But of course he did, he was there at the end of last year when Dumbledore told them that his mother's protection was gone.

"Yeah," Harry agreed. The others still looked confused, so he kept talking. "My mother died to save me. Love as powerful as hers leaves a mark in my skin, he said, even if she's gone. And because Quirrell was so full of hate and greed, and he was sharing his soul with Voldemort, he couldn't stand to touch something so good and pure."

Harry had the urge to roll his eyes at how choked up everyone else was looking- even Fred and George were remarkably pale and had serious expressions- before he remembered he'd had to stop and wipe his eyes off on the bed sheet when Dumbledore had first told him, too.

"Anyways, then I asked him if he knew where the Invisibility Cloak came from," Harry said, trying to move on. "I still had no idea. It was just a shot in the dark to ask, I wasn't expecting an answer."

"But you got one?" Remus asked, looking interested.

"I did. Apparently, my father left Dumbledore himself the cloak before he died," Harry said, looking back and forth between the two Marauders. If anyone could answer the question of why it had been with Dumbledore, they would be. But they both looked perplexed. "So you didn't know about that?"

"No. As far as I know, he had it in the days preceding Voldemort's attack," Sirius said. He laughed a little before saying, "He used to use it to sneak out of your house for a few hours every couple of days. He couldn't stand being locked up like that. It used to worry Lily so much. And I know he had a few close calls, but he never did get himself caught."

Harry smiled. "Dumbledore said that when he was at Hogwarts he'd used it mainly to sneak food from the kitchen."

Both Sirius and Remus laughed. "Well, yes, he did do that quite a lot," Remus said, "but that definitely wasn't what he mainly used it for."

"I don't think Dumbledore knows half of what we did back then, even now," Sirius said, looking amused.

"He probably wouldn't even want to know, to be fair," Remus said, cocking his head to one side.

The two Marauders shared another amused glance, laughing, and for a moment Harry could almost see them as they were when they were at Hogwarts. The tricky pranksters, sneaking around at night and laughing their way through detentions. But the marks of stress and premature age on both of their faces broke though the vision and brought his mind back.

Harry didn't really want to bring up what he'd asked Dumbledore next, seeing as it was apt to take the smile off of his godfather's face, but he knew he had to.

"But then, I asked him about something else that Quirrell had told me. That Snape only hated me because he hated my dad." Just as he'd thought, a scowl landed on Sirius's face and he sat back in his chair. "And Dumbledore told me that Snape only hated my father because my father… saved his life."

Both of the Marauders looked a little abashed at that, Sirius a bit angry and Remus somewhat ashamed. Most of the others looked mainly curious, however.

"He did?" Ginny asked. "Your dad saved Snape's life?"

Fred and George looked on the verge of saying something (Harry figured it would have been something like 'that's a shame') but caught sight of their mother staring at them and remained silent.

"Yeah, he did. It confused me at the time too. Dumbledore said that they'd had a rivalry not unlike mine and Malfoy's."

"I suppose that would be about accurate," Remus said. "From what I've seen of Draco, you two don't get along very well at all."

Harry nodded. "We don't. But Dumbledore said that was the breaking point, though. And that Snape likely worked so hard to protect me that year because he thought it would make them even. Then he could happily hate my father's memory in peace."

"But that's…" Ginny said, trailing off and looking confused.

"Yeah. I tried to figure it out then too, but it made my head hurt, so I stopped. And I moved onto my last question."

"Hopefully that was asking about how you got the stone?" Remus asked.

"You're wondering about that, then?" Harry asked, smiling a little.

"I have to say, I am. It's very curious."

"Well, I was curious too. But he never really explained how he did it. Then again, at the time I probably wouldn't have understood anyway, only being a first year. Either way, he said that only someone who wanted to get the stone who didn't want to use it could get it. I had no interest in using it; I just wanted to keep it away from Quirrell. So when I looked in the mirror, I got it."

"It was a smart idea," Remus mused, looking like he was trying to figure out how Dumbledore had done it. Everyone else was looking mildly impressed as well.

"But then, he got up to go," Harry said, laughing as he remembered what happened. "And he stopped at the pile of candy that I'd gotten and decided to try a Bertie Bott's Bean. Apparently he'd had a vomit flavoured one when he was younger and it kind of put him off of them. But he thought he'd be safe with a toffee flavoured bean."

"It wasn't toffee flavoured, was it?" Sirius asked, looking a bit amused once again.

"Of course not. It was earwax. He choked on it," Harry said, and everyone laughed.

"You know, I got a bogie flavoured one once," Fred said, nodding. The Weasleys all rolled their eyes a little, having heard that before enough times.

"So I've heard," Harry said. "But I had a few other visitors before I got out. Ron and Hermione came, of course. And so did Hagrid. I think he was more upset than I was, he was half sobbing and thinking that he was the reason Quirrell was able to get so far. Because he told him about Fluffy."

"But it wasn't all his fault though!" Ginny said. "He would have found a way even if Hagrid hadn't told him!"

"That's about what I told him. He calmed down after a minute," Harry said. "And that was when he gave me the photo album with all the pictures of my parents in it." There were a few moments of silence as Harry thought about the photo album that was sitting in his trunk upstairs. He couldn't remember the last time he opened it. Though he'd looked it over so much that he knew every picture in it.

After a minute he realized that everyone was waiting for him to continue, and he cleared his throat. "Well, after that it was pretty boring. The next interesting thing happened with the end of year feast."

"Ah, and what an excellent feast it was," George said, grinning.

"So who won the house cup, then?" Sirius asked. "Gryffindor, hopefully?"

"Well, actually, Slytherin won," Fred answered, still grinning like his brother.

"Then why in Merlin's name would that be excellent? Nothing good could come of Slytherin winning anything," Sirius said.

"Oh, you'll see," Fred said, casting an amused glance over to the Trio, who were all grinning as well.

"What? What happened?" Sirius asked, looking back and forth between all of them.

"Well," Harry said, starting off, "I got to the feast late because Madam Pomfrey wouldn't stop fussing over me. Of course, when I walked in everyone fell silent for a few seconds and stared."

"Most of the talk at the feast was discussing the rumours of what had happened," Hermione said, nodding. Harry rolled his eyes a little.

"Well, Dumbledore started his speech right after I sat down, so there wasn't much more time for me to be gaped at."

Ron looked about fit to laugh, a smug expression on his face. "Yeah. He announced where everyone ranked. The Slytherins in the lead, followed by the Ravenclaws and the Hufflepuffs. And then the Gryffindors in last place."

"Why do you look so happy about that?" Sirius asked confusedly. Harry realized that most everyone probably knew about what had happened except for him, Mr. and Mrs. Weasley learning from their children. And from Remus's expression, he seemed to know as well.

"Because," Hermione said, "a few last minute points had to be awarded, owing to recent events."

"And how far was Gryffindor behind?" Sirius asked, looking like he was catching on.

"We were exactly a hundred and sixty points behind Slytherin," Hermione answered.

"Trust her to remember that," Fred stage whispered, earning an exasperated look from her.

"Ouch. But how did… He can't have…" Sirius said.

"Well, see, I got fifty points," Ron said, "for the best played game of chess Hogwarts had seen in many years."

"Fifty?" Sirius asked eyes wide. Ron nodded smugly.

"And I got fifty points too," Hermione said. "For the cool use of logic in the face of fire."

"A hundred points, right then?" Sirius said, looking shocked. Though he was still starting to grin.

"But don't forget about me, now," Harry said jokingly. The seriousness and the tense atmosphere were gone, at least for right then.

"How many did you get? You'd be sixty points behind then..."

"That's exactly how many I did get," Harry said. "Sixty points. For pure nerve and outstanding courage."

"Brilliant!" Sirius said, throwing his head back and laughing. "He tied you with the Slytherins! Bet they weren't too happy about that!"

"Oh no, they definitely weren't," Hermione said. "All of them looked quite sour. But Dumbledore still wasn't done."

"But who else could have gotten points?" Sirius asked.

"Well," Hermione said, thinking for a moment. "He said 'It takes a great deal of bravery to stand up to our enemies, but just as much to stand up to our friends. Therefore, I award ten points to… Mr. Neville Longbottom'."

"He awarded the points to Neville? For trying to stop you?" Sirius asked, laughing again. "Oh, the Slytherins must have been murderous."

"They looked about ready to charge across the great hall when Dumbledore changed all the banners," Fred said. "The great snakes and green banners disappeared and big red ones with Gryffindor lions showed up."

"What I would have given to see that," Sirius said, shaking his head. "What a way to end the year. You certainly did go out with a bang, didn't you?"

"You could say that," Harry said. It was good to see everyone so happy, which was a change from what they'd talked through. And what they had yet to say.

"Here I thought no one could get themselves into more trouble than we did our first year," Remus said amusedly.

"Oh, you wouldn't believe what else he he's gotten into," Ron said. I mean, that was only first year. Second year was just as interesting, if not even more…"

* * *

**I've decided to split the years up into separate stories, so the retelling of second year will be in a new story! It'll likely be called 'A Look Back: The Chamber of Secrets' or something along those lines. Keep an eye out for that!**

**And lastly, if you'd like to review, it would be appreciated! Love to hear what you guys have to say!**

**Thanks for all your interest in this story, and hope to see you at the next one!**


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